Aftershocks
by Janice Cox
Summary: In the wake of "Be My Valentine," Natalie struggles to deal with memories that tell her that she and Nick have never been more than friends...and memories that aren't hers at all.
1. Chapter 1

Aftershocks

By Janice Cox

Author's Note: This story stands alone, but follows after my last FK story, "In the Blood," also published here. It's set in the second season immediately after "Be My Valentine."

Chapter One

It's rough being in love with your best friend's girl.

I took a deep (and completely unnecessary) breath and stood up straighter, too aware of my none-too-broad shoulders beneath the clean t-shirt I'd pulled on before heading out the door at her call. As I waited for Natalie Lambert to answer the door I wondered for the hundredth time what had possessed me to volunteer my services as her personal computer repair guy. I'd managed to go more than a year without running out of excuses as to why we couldn't meet in person, after all. It hadn't even been that hard; my reputation as a social recluse made my half-hearted excuses believable enough, even to Nat. Staying away was for the smart thing to do and I knew it. Sooner or later I was bound to do or say something to give myself away, and then I'd lose not one but two friendships that meant a hell of a lot to me.

So what _was_ I doing here, anyway?

###

Since we'd met a little more than a year ago hardly a week went by that Natalie and I didn't talk, with the computer's email and chat programs acting as both chaperon and intermediary. But phone calls were an infrequent thing between us, and from the second I picked up the phone I had known something was wrong.

"Jack? Is that you?" It was Natalie, but her usual warmth and good humor were nowhere to be heard.

"None other. What's up, Nat?" I tried to sound cool, like it was an everyday occurrence for the lady I was hopelessly, pointlessly, in love with to give me a call at three in the morning. Belatedly I heard the strain in her voice, the catch in her breath that's the precursor to tears.

"Oh, nothing. Everything. It's this damned computer. It won't work right. It pretty much won't work at all, Jack, and this I just do not need right now." She laughed uncertainly, as if suddenly aware of how tight and ragged her voice sounded. "Sorry. It's just that I really wanted to get some work done, you know? There's not a whole heck of a lot else to do at three in the morning. Though I guess I don't have to tell you that, do I? I mean, there's the TV, but an hour on Ginsu knives is really my limit, and after that I start to get just a little bit annoyed with their bright, smiling… and don't even get me _started_ on the dating services." She took a deep breath that sounded suspiciously like a sob. "Oh, hell. I'm babbling, aren't I?"

"I like listening to you babble." It came out without conscious thought and I winced. Wouldn't do to let Nat know how much I enjoyed hearing her voice, even when it _did_ sound like she'd been mainlining caffeine. "So why aren't you asleep? You and Nick on some new case?" That would explain a lot, I thought. Nat on a case was like a rabid terrier, and if she and Nick were working in close contact on one that would just add to the tension.

"Nope. I am taking some well-deserved time off." Now she was putting effort into sounding bright and cheery, but I could hear the strain underlying her words. "But of course my brain still thinks I'm working the night shift, which leaves me with waaay too much night time on my hands. I'm sorry. I probably caught you in the middle of something, didn't I? I know you said you had a big contract in the works. I didn't think. I just…called. Guess I needed to hear a friendly voice."

_A friendly voice_. Ah, pretty lady, if only you knew. Fleetingly I wondered why she hadn't called Nick. As the Designated Boyfriend, it was really his job to soothe the lady's spirits, wasn't it? I was just the Designated Boyfriend's Buddy, good for a few laughs and a safe, neutral (neuter?) sounding board when the relationship hit a snag…a frequent enough occurrence with Nick and Nat. I looked at the monitor in front of me, and the stack of notes beside it. It was a big contract, all right. One that I'd fought hard to get, with a deadline that was just this side of impossible and looming closer all the time.

"I'm sorry. I'll let you go." She sounded so forlorn. As usual, I'd shut up when I should have said something.

"Wait! I'm, um, sorry. Guess I was just woolgathering there for a sec. Look, why don't I come take a look at your computer? I mean, I _did_ install it. That means you get the full, patented, Jack Cohen Eternal Customer Support. And, unlike you docs, _I _still make house calls." I listened to the words coming out of my mouth like they belonged to someone else. The truth was, I _didn't_ make house calls. Hell, there were weeks when I didn't leave the house at all. And I had a business deadline coming up that not even a vampire "whammy" could get me out of. All perfectly good reasons for why I should just say good night and wish the lady well.

Who was I kidding? I reached out and flicked off the monitor even before Nat could accept in a voice that was one step away from grateful tears. Moments later I was out the door before second thoughts could catch me.

###

I knocked again, softly in deference to the hour. The second thoughts had caught up with me on my way over, and had been joined by the uneasies that made an appearance whenever I ventured out into public, making me wonder if I hadn't made a big mistake. Maybe Nat had finally fallen asleep, I thought. It _was_ almost four in the morning. I'd knock once more, then head home, I decided. My hand was an inch from the door when I caught the sound of movement inside, and a moment later the door swung open.

The Natalie Lambert who greeted me was miles away from the one who lived inside my head. This Natalie's wavy, golden brown hair was a rat's nest of tangles pulled haphazardly into a ponytail. Thick strands had escaped to either side, sticking out like dull pieces of straw. She was wearing baggy sweat pants and a t-shirt that looked older than I did, with mismatched socks scruffed down around her ankles. Nat's face had a pale, pinched look I didn't like at all, with dark circles around brown eyes that looked, well, _haunted_. I wanted nothing more than to sweep her into my arms and hold her until whatever demons pursued her set her free.

But I couldn't do that, of course. Instead all systems locked up and I stared at her helplessly as the moment passed from surprise into awkwardness. After a moment that seemed much longer than it probably was Nat raised one hand and patted ineffectually at her hair.

"Sorry. Guess I fell asleep on the couch. I was having the strangest dream…" She trailed off, as if still half in whatever dream I'd pulled her from.

"It's late," I agreed. It would be easier to make my excuses and walk away, I thought. Easier than getting involved with whatever was troubling Natalie so. Computers I'm good with. People, not so much. But, _oh, Natalie_… "So. You going to invite me in, or what?"

###

"Well, what do you think, Doctor? Is the patient going to survive?"

I pulled my attention away from Natalie's computer and grinned up at her. Nat had gone to wash up and change her clothes while I looked at her computer, and was now sitting on the arm of her sofa, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand. The other hand was absently stroking her cat's fur, and I saw with relief that some of the animation had returned to her face. I made a show of ponderously examining the exposed motherboard and then shook my head wisely.

"It's too early to tell, Doctor. Still, the patient is young and healthy, and comes from good stock. Perhaps your learned colleague would like to come over here and perform a cat-scan?" I dropped the act and continued in a more normal tone of voice as I replaced the computer's cover. "The problem doesn't seem to be in the hardware. That leaves software. The diagnostics all check out, so I don't think it's any of your store-bought programs."

"Which leaves…_your_ software," Nat asked with wide-eyed innocence. She was doing better at hiding whatever was bothering her, I noticed. "Jack," she purred teasingly, "did you break my computer?"

"Not me, lady," I protested weakly, then bit my lip in thought. The program was designed to stop any intruder in his tracks without any help from the user and had been written with Natalie's computer specifications in mind. It went easy on the RAM and shouldn't have anything to do with her current computer woes. Still, when you eliminate the impossible… "Wouldn't hurt to check it out," I conceded. Double-clicking the iron gate icon opened my firewall program and then I opened the report function. Most of my attention was on the program, and for a moment I wasn't sure I'd heard right when Natalie spoke again. "I'm sorry, Nat. What did you say?"

She jumped, blinking as if pulled from an unpleasant daydream. "Not me. I didn't say a thing." She'd seemed distracted ever since I arrived, from time to time murmuring something under her breath that I couldn't quite catch. She hadn't wanted to talk about it, that much was clear. I decided to push the issue a little.

"You did, unless Sydney's more talented than you've let on. Something about trading flowers? No, trading Fleur, I think. Somebody from work?" The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. I turned back to the computer as it beeped at me. "Here we go. Yep, you've been hit."

"No, he never hit me," Natalie replied absently. "No! I mean, of course not. Nick would never…" She trailed off uncertainly. The sudden vulnerability I saw in her face moved me to her side in an instant, her computer forgotten. "I'm sorry. What were we talking about," she asked with a shaky smile.

I touched her shoulder gently. "Nat, what's wrong? Did you and Nick have some kind of fight?" She didn't reply, and I plowed ahead gamely. "All relationships go through rough patches. You don't have to be a centuries old vampire to know that." _And you know how much he loves you, Nat, even if he can't say it_. Come on, Jack. Say the words, damn it. I opened my mouth to try, then snapped it shut as Natalie laughed raggedly.

"Relationship? That's a pretty…loaded…word for what Nick and I have." There was something in her tone that I couldn't quite identify. Was it…hostility?

"Too eighties, huh? How about 'high romance'?" I nodded toward the vase of white roses, sitting in slightly faded splendor on the coffee table. "What did you and Nick end up doing on Valentine's Day? You never said." Nick had been dancing around the idea of commitment for weeks. When I'd talked to him about a week ago it had sounded like he'd finally been ready to take the big step. And what better day than Valentine's to profess your literally undying love for your lady?

Apparently things hadn't worked out the way Nick had hoped. If anything, Natalie's discomfort grew under my curious look. "We had a perfectly nice time. Or so I'm told. Apparently I really tied one on that night, something I haven't done since college. Embarrassing, but a little beside the point. There's nothing between Nick and I, Jack. We're just friends. Colleagues, even. I know what he is, and my scientific background lets me help him in his search for a cure. End of story," she concluded firmly.

I stood there, slack jawed, not sure of what to say. This was no lover's spat. Nat was completely serious.

And completely out of her mind.

"Nat, I've seen the two of you together, remember? You two are so much more than friends." Even if Nick found it hard to say the words, it was written all over his face whenever he spoke of Natalie. And Natalie's feelings for Nick had been painfully obvious to yours truly since the first time I'd laid eyes on her.

"Oh, I'll admit there is a certain…attraction. Opposites attract, as they say. Like two sides of the same coin." A shadow crossed her face and was gone. "But that's all it is. An _attraction_. Infatuation, at best." She rubbed at her temples. "Sometimes I think… No. Forget it."

"What?"

It's probably nothing. I haven't been sleeping very well. And I'm having the strangest dreams." Natalie shifted uncomfortably on the couch, her gaze averted.

"But…?" I prompted.

"Lately I've been thinking that, well, I know it's crazy, but I keep getting the feeling that Nick is _using_ me. Being just nice enough to me to keep me interested in finding a cure, but not so interested that I become a nuisance. One week he's all roses and charm, and the next I'm not even sure he takes me seriously as a scientist." She frowned, looking less like a wounded lover and more like an exterminator considering a particularly nasty species of bug.

A chill went down my spine. Something was wrong here. Seriously wrong, and way over my head. The computer was beeping insistently behind me, and after a moment I turned to see what was going on with something like relief.

"So what's the verdict?" Nat was her old self, perched on the edge of the computer desk and looking at me inquisitively. I blinked and pulled myself free from the computer mystery with effort. Several minutes had passed, and now Nat looked perfectly normal.

"Somebody's been trying to break into your system. The firewall should have shut him down, but whoever it is is trying to hack through. He's gotten through the first layer without triggering the alarms, and getting tangled in the second line of defense. That's what's eating up your processor speed. Weird."

"So, it _was_ your software." Nat leaned over and nudged me with her shoulder, her eyes sparkling. It was hard to reconcile this smiling minx with the woman who'd stared at me through narrowed eyes just a few minutes before. But then again, when she smiled like that at me it was pretty much hard to think at all.

"Yeah, okay. Sort of. But the point is, somebody's been trying to break into your computer." I was here to fix her computer, I reminded myself. Nothing more.

"I didn't think that was possible," Nat replied, absently pulling her hair back into a neatened ponytail while she spoke. Raising her arms that way did things to her figure that made me look away before the drooling could become too apparent.

"Shouldn't be. I wrote that program to deter your average hacker and most of the pros out there today. I can't figure out why somebody would use this kind of high powered weaponry against a system like yours," I explained, moving safely back in the realm of computers. Be still, my (non-) beating heart.

"Well, it's not much, but I'm rather fond of it," Nat said dryly.

"Hey, no, it's a good system. I should know, right?" I smiled wryly. "That's me. Open mouth, insert foot. What I meant was, this guy's using techniques that you'd need to break into the CCRA, or maybe the Pentagon. It's overkill for your average home computer, and you just don't have anything that anyone that high-tech would want. Like I said, weird."

"So, can you fix it?"

"Sure. This guy is good, but he ain't me. " She rolled her eyes in response. "We'll leave your modem connected, and I'll set up a trap. The next time he tries to get in, I'll have his number. And his name. And his favorite color." It was good to see Nat smile, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was seriously off kilter. "In the mean time, watch your back, okay? Lock your door, don't take any candy from strangers. Someone's paying you more attention than I'd like." Greatly daring, I reached out and touched her cheek. "And get some sleep. You look like hell, kiddo."

"I will." For a moment Nat's hand rested on mine and I had the feeling she was seeing _me_, Jack Cohen, not just Nick's Friend The Computer Guy. I had to forcibly remind myself that she was taken, even if the lady in question didn't seem to agree at the moment. A lot of us refer to our vampire aspect as The Beast, but I've got to tell you that he's nothing compared to the one that growled to life at Natalie's touch. Tired and under stress, she was still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And we talked together so easily. Laughed at the same things. Loved learning, and loved a challenge even more. It would be so easy to make a move right now, I thought. To breach the gulf between friend and—

_No._ I pulled away before the thought could even be completed. The effort left me shaking. I wanted her that badly.

"I should go." _I should never have come._

"It's getting late," Natalie agreed slowly, a strange look on her face. "Or early, I suppose. I really appreciate your coming over, Jack." A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "I'm sorry I wasn't better company. These dreams…" She shook her head as if to clear it. "Anyway, I owe you one." She reached out and touched my arm. I could feel the slow, steady beat of her pulse through the thin material of my shirt. Suddenly I could smell her perfume, faint but sweet, and the warm, musky scent of her skin. And the scent of her blood, even sweeter, rushing just beneath that pale, creamy surface. "Thanks for being there," she said softly.

"Anytime." A one-word reply was all I could manage, and even that came from a mouth that felt like it was stuffed with cotton and dangerously close to sprouting fangs. I met her gaze for just a second, then turned and left before I could make an even bigger fool of myself.

As I headed for the safety and security of home my thoughts were filled with equal parts guilt and desire. Nick was one of the best friends I had, and I had been seriously considering making a move on his mortal lady love. Or was she? Natalie had been so adamant that there was nothing between them. And she liked me, I knew she did. Maybe Nick had cooled things, I reasoned. That would explain Nat's weird behavior. Maybe I had a chance, after all. Maybe I could…

_Shit._ I stopped in my tracks, my fists clenched in sudden frustration. Away from Natalie I could think clearly, and I knew it wasn't right. _Nothing_ about tonight was right. Nat was in love with Nick, had been since I'd met her more than a year ago. Oh, she tried to play it cool, but if it was obvious to a social idiot like me, then there wasn't any doubt about it. And she hadn't been saying that something had changed, that they'd had a falling out of some kind. No, Nat had said that _there had never been anything between them_. And you couldn't rewrite history, as much as a small, craven part of me would like to.

But you could make someone think you had.

A surge of unaccustomed anger made me see red, and brought out the fangs I'd so carefully hidden from Natalie. Someone had been playing with Natalie's memories. Fundamentally altering the one thing that made her precious and unique. It shouldn't have even been possible. Natalie was a resistor, making her immune to most of the mental whammy we could inflict on a mortal. It would take a powerful vampire and just the right set of circumstances to get past that. I couldn't have, even if I had wanted to.

Nick could, maybe. I tasted that thought, wondering if it fit. Nick loved Natalie, even if he was too afraid to act on that love. He would have died the final death to protect her, I knew. How many times had he talked about how much he cared for her, about how he longed to be mortal so he could be with her? But there had always been some hesitation in his words, some reluctance to take the next step. He was deathly afraid of bringing her across, and I always figured that his reluctance to get closer to Nat was a part of that. It drove Natalie crazy sometimes, but most of the time she seemed to understand. I would have bet my unlife that Nick would never do anything to hurt her.

_But._ But Nick also had more than his share of the elder vampire's "I know what's best for you" syndrome. He tried to protect Nat from what he thought she shouldn't know, not giving her credit for being able to make her own decisions. Of all the mortals in his life, Nat was the one he should have been able to trust with his secrets. She already knew enough to get her killed, should the Enforcers get wind of it. Knowing everything, _sharing_ everything, couldn't make her any more dead, could it? Sometimes he treated her like a child, I thought with growing resentment, and you can't be in love with a child. You can only love an equal, and I was beginning to wonder if Nick had ever seen Natalie that way. If Nick thought that Natalie's feelings for him were putting her in danger, would he have…? _Could_ he have? I was afraid I knew the answer to that. With the barest of looks around I took to the air, not caring who saw me.

_Nick had changed Natalie's memories_. The thought was galling, infuriating. It was one thing to change a stranger's memories to protect your secret. It was something else entirely to enter the mind of the woman you claimed to love, to _violate_ her by changing such an elemental part of her self. I found myself headed for Nick's loft, shaking with fury. But the sky was already pink with the first strains of dawn, and the rational part of me knew that I was out of time. Reluctantly I veered off, heading instead for home. Nick was my friend, I reminded myself. And a good guy. One of the best. There had to be an another explanation.

And God help Nick if there wasn't.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

I hadn't been to The Raven since just after it opened a few years ago. Little, it seemed, had changed, and I steeled myself for the ordeal to come as I pulled open the door. Janette DuChamps owned the place and was an elder in the local Community, which meant little vamps like me had been pretty much required to make an appearance at its grand opening. I swore at the time that nothing would ever drag me into such a crowded, noisy place again. But here I was, standing in the doorway and checking the place for threats, my cold heart tight in my throat.

There were maybe a hundred people inside, almost equally divided between vampires and mortals. It was a ridiculously high ratio, but the lady kept them in line, from what I'd heard. Having LaCroix hanging around couldn't hurt, I thought wryly, seeing the master vampire glide across the floor toward a back corner. Other vampires made way for him as he passed without even being aware they were doing it-his presence was just that strong. None of them paid me any attention as I nodded to the bouncer and headed for the bar, trying not to look like I was looking every which way at once. I ordered a drink from the dark-eyed bartender there then turned to face the crowd, struggling to keep my cool and look for Nick at the same time.

It was Saturday night, Nick's night off and probably the busiest night of the week at The Raven. Vampires and mortals of all kinds mingled on the dance floor and at the small tables set around the edges, but none of them were Nick. The heavy bass of a dance number beat at my gut like a stick, and I was forcibly aware of the warm and not-so-warm bodies all around me. Voices shrill with laughter. Voices husky with desire. The smell of sweat and pounding heartbeats from the mortals on the dance floor. A hundred different voices, a hundred different scents. All strangers. All much too close for comfort. I found myself checking for the exits, Nick forgotten, my nerves jacked up and ready explode.

"Most people come here to have a good time." The voice was soft and lightly accented, and cut through the noise like a lover's whisper in my ear. "You, however, look as if you would rather be anyplace else in the world than here. Surely my hospitality has not been so bad as that?"

I spun around to find the owner of that sultry voice, coolly managing not to either drop my glass or spill its contents all over my shirt, a small miracle. The guy serving drinks had been replaced by a beautiful vampire woman who stood looking at me with amused curiosity tinged with condescension. After a moment I recognized her as Janette, the bar's owner and Nick's former lover.

"It's not so bad." She sniffed with delicate disdain at my words, and I managed a weak grin. "Okay. I hate it. But I'm not exactly a social kind of guy."

"I never would have guessed." Janette placed her wine glass on the bar, her long, pale fingers tipped with blood-red fingernails and decorated with delicate rings that had probably cost a literal king's ransom. She had a vampire woman's still, calm beauty, a thousand light years from Natalie's warm, passionate vitality. But as I looked into her assessing, half-mocking eyes, I could see what Nick must have seen in her. She was smart, and tough—you'd have to be to survive as long as Janette had. Beneath that I could see compassion, a rare enough trait among our kind. It was that compassion that led the lost and broken to find shelter here, something even I had heard about. That had undoubtedly appealed to Nick in his struggle to regain what he saw as his humanity. And did I mention that the lady was drop-dead, you should excuse the expression, beautiful?

"So. Since we have established that you haven't come to my fine establishment for the company, perhaps you would care to share why, exactly, you are here? And looking so very intense. You have not brought trouble to my bar, have you, Mister Cohen?" The last was a threat veiled in lace and I jumped slightly. Janette had gone from charming hostess to elder vampire protecting her territory in the blink of an eye, and I felt more than a little like a bug on a dissecting board.

"Not me. I'm hardly ever trouble." Belatedly, I remembered the last time we'd met. I'd been in hot water with the Enforcers, and had, in her view, dragged Nick into the pool with me. It had ended okay, but Janette was apparently not quick to forgive and forget.

"Then I am sure that you will be eager to share what has brought you here." The charming smile was still in place, but there was no mistaking the command beneath the silken words.

"I'm looking for Nick." I held up my hands in not-altogether-mock surrender. "Nobody's after me, honest. I just need to talk to him. He wasn't at home, and he's not at work." I put on my best smile, which fooled her not at all. "Where else could he be but here?"

"In centuries past, my Nicola would indeed be by my side. In centuries before you were born." Ouch. "But in recent years, he has chosen to find his entertainments elsewhere. As I am sure you are aware." She wasn't happy about the change in Nick's habits, or with me for reminding her of it. Things just kept getting better and better.

"He's not at Natalie's." Janette's pupils widened just a little at the mention of Nat, but otherwise the lady's face might have been carved from stone. I wasn't sure if it was carefully concealed jealously or anger at Nat for helping Nick try to regain his mortality that brought out the ice queen. Not my business, anyway. "And he's not answering his beeper. I'm running out of places to look." I raised my eyebrows in entreaty. "You know him better than almost anyone else. I figured if he wasn't here, you might know where to look. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important." It was important, all right. I'd talked to Nat on the phone earlier that night, and she sounded worse than ever. Whatever Nick had done to her, it needed to be undone. Fast. I don't hang on to anger well, but the memory of Nat's voice on the phone brought it all back in a rush.

Maybe she saw some of that in my face, or maybe she was just getting tired of playing with me. Janette nodded fractionally, then gestured with one elegant hand toward the far end of the room. "As it happens, he _is _here. Though I doubt that Nicola is in the mood for whatever trouble you are 'not' bringing to him." Put something over on Janette? Not in this lifetime. She'd read me like a book, and didn't approve of my dumping on her beloved 'Nicola.'

"Thanks." Nick would have bent over her hand and murmured some cool words of gratitude, but Nick is, well, Nick. I settled for nodding my thanks and respect before turning to make my way through the crowd. Why couldn't he have chosen a table on this side of the room, I grumbled to myself. I was going to have to make my way through more people than I normally saw in a month just to reach his table. And it was so damned far from the exits. _C'mon, Nick. Give me a break, huh?_ Nick showed no signs of hearing my silent plea, and I was solidly into the throng when it turned into a stampede with me right in the middle of it.

###

"Roxie!" The first cry felt like it was screamed directly into my ear and was quickly followed by a dozen others from the people all around me. Men and women, mortal and vampire, all of them crowding around and past me toward someone or something at the main doors. Bodies crushed into me, cranking up the old 'fight or flight' instinct until I was trembling and ready to take to the air to escape. I reminded myself that stunts like that would get me killed, but it didn't do much good. I looked in vain for a way out, any way out. I couldn't see the exits, couldn't hear the sounds of the street that had to be nearby, couldn't even move. _The crush of bodies pressed together in the dark. Rough laughter, and the smell of smoke in the air. A woman's sharp scream_. _The first glint of fire, licking at the walls like a hungry lover._

_Out. I had to get out._

"When I said you should get out more, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind." Nick's calm voice cut through my rising panic like a knife. A moment later I felt his hand squeeze my shoulder, and the combination of the two drained the tension from me like a sieve. Nick was standing beside me, looking down at me with understanding. He knew what it cost me to come to a place like this. The crowd continued to eddy around us, but now there seemed to be room to breathe, even if I didn't actually need to.

I tried for a witty comeback and failed utterly. "Hey, Nick."

"So what's going on? I don't think I've seen this kind of crowd since the Battle of Hastings." It was an old joke between the two of us, brought up now to keep Hermit Jack from entertaining the crowd with one of his infamous panic attacks. It worked. I took a deep breath, which loosened the muscles in my chest even if it didn't actually provide me with any air, and managed to shrug casually.

"Oh, this? Hadn't really noticed." Nick radiates calm, most of the time. You get the feeling that he's seen it all at least twice, and enjoyed most of it. If he was calm now, I knew there wasn't anything to worry about. I still itched to get out of this damned crowd, but now the fear was manageable. Several people in the crush were chanting the same name over and over. Now that I wasn't busy freaking out I had time to wonder what the fuss was all about. "Who's Roxie, anyway?"

Nick looked ahead, then over toward the bar. "I don't know. Janette doesn't look too pleased, whoever it is. Why don't we check it out?" He took a step deeper into the crowd and I grabbed his arm. Behind us the crowd had thinned, and I could see the emergency exit. Sweet, sweet relief. More tension drained away, leaving me able to remember why I'd come here in the first place.

"As tempting as that is, I really need to talk to you." I looked longingly toward the rear exit, then back at Nick. "It's important. It's about—" A woman's shriek cut me off and made us both jump. It was followed by some rough laughter and an increase in sound from the crowd, something I would have sworn wasn't possible a minute ago.

"In just a minute." Nick offered me a vague smile, most of his attention already on whatever was happening up front. "I think Janette could use a little help." He pulled free of my arm and gave me a gentle push toward the milling crowd ahead. "Let's go see, shall we?"

"Ah, come on, Nick," I began as we stepped into the crowd. They moved aside for us grudgingly but fast enough that before I knew it we were in the middle of the chanting, laughing mob. There was a tension running through the crowd that made my hair stand on end, and it was only Nick's hand on my shoulder that kept me from bolting for the exit. At last we reached the front of the crowd. A big guy in a leather jacket and a ragged beard (_vampire_, I knew instantly) was standing in front of us, blocking our view.

"Excuse us," Nick said calmly. The guy ignored Nick. Nick released me and stepped forward, grasping the guy's arm firmly. "Step aside, won't you?"

The biker guy looked back over his shoulder, his eyes glowing a warning. "Make me."

"You really don't want me to do that." The words were quiet, almost gentle. Biker Dude started to turn, the vampire flowing up into his face as he did. He looked down at Nick contemptuously for a long moment. Nick looked back with a calm I couldn't pretend to feel. Then the biker dropped his eyes, the vampire melting away before it had fully appeared. Without a word he turned and left, shoving mortals out of his way and trying to act like he hadn't been chased off by a guy six inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter. I grinned up at Nick, but Nick's attention was already on the scene unfolding in front of us.

The crowd's attention was focused on a young woman—young vampire, I realized after a second—who seemed to relish the attention. She was certainly dressed to impress the crowd, with black leather pants and matching corset that were both so tight they could have been painted on. Her hair was inky black streaked with purple, cascading past her shoulders like a tangled lion's mane. Makeup that was a blend of Goth and punk made sure that you noticed her huge eyes and full, red lips. She was—wait a minute. I pulled my gaze back to her face. Had I really seen what I thought I had?

I had. Those weren't contact lenses in some fashionable mortal color within the circle of heavy black eyeliner. They were the glowing, feral eyes of the vampire. The lady threw back her head and laughed, a husky sound that was like fingernails on a blackboard, and I caught the white glint of fangs behind those ruby red lips. I glanced over at Nick. He looked as surprised as I felt. The Raven was a sanctuary for us, of sorts, but it was still open to the mortal public, and that meant you followed the rules.

"What a wonderful reception!" Her voice carried easily over the noise of the crowd, and at her words they roared their approval. "I knew that I would find _like minded souls_ here at The Raven." The emphasis could have meant anything, but the smug smile on her face suggested she knew exactly what she was doing. The mortals ate it up, but I saw a look pass through several of the older vampires in the crowd. She was outing herself, and with her words outing everyone here as well. The mystery woman picked up an electric guitar and held it over her head. "So who's ready for little Bloodbath?"

The crowd went wild, save for the handful of vampires who remained frozen in place as if caught in a spotlight. I knew exactly how they felt. Centuries—no, eons—of careful hiding were being tossed aside like yesterday's newspaper by the stranger in front of us. I saw Nick take a step forward, concern, anger, and confusion mingled on his face.

"Enough!" Janette's voice didn't have the stranger's trained projection, but with a single word she froze everyone within earshot. Everyone, it seemed, but the mystery lady herself. The guitarist turned slowly, a smug smile playing across her features. She looked down into Janette's face unflinchingly, seeming to dare the elder vampire to say a word.

Janette took her up on it. "I do not remember inviting you into my establishment. What is the meaning of this…display, _child_?" It was a warning any vampire would have understood immediately, but the guitarist just tossed her head back and laughed.

"I'm sorry. I thought this was a bar. A place for dancing, and _drinking_," she smirked, "and letting our dark sides out to play!" The last words were clearly meant for the crowd, who roared their approval. The noise faded quickly, everyone's attention focused on the confrontation between the two women. "I'd heard that The Raven was the place to be in Toronto. Was I wrong?"

Several voices shouted "No!" Janette gifted the woman with a look that could freeze fire.

"People come here to have a good time. _Many types_ of people," Janette added meaningfully. Was it possible, I wondered, that the woman had thought The Raven closed to everyone but vampires? Surely she wasn't that oblivious. "And I believe I would have remembered if I had hired you to be this evening's entertainment. So. I ask you again. _What is the meaning of this display?_" You could have heard a pin drop, and I saw Nick take another step forward, ready to back Janette's play.

"What display," the other woman asked with mock innocence. One black-tipped hand went to her wide eyes, then to her lips, which parted with sensual slowness. She caressed one gleaming white fang, then held the hand in front of her dramatically.

"Oh my goodness. Glowing eyes. Fangs. She thinks I'm a vampire!" The words were shouted to the crowd, which burst into laughter and cheers. Beneath the roar of the crowd I barely heard her next words, which were whispered into Janette's ear. "What's the matter, honey? Never seen the show? It's a real crowd pleaser, believe me. Now, if you'll excuse me, my fans are waiting." She made as if to brush past Janette, and nearly walked right into Nick, who was suddenly at Janette's side.

"I don't think so, Roxie." It was the same quiet, confident tone he'd used on the biker, and I expected to see the same results. I didn't expect what happened next. The woman (_Roxie_, I realized belatedly) looked up into Nick's eyes and smiled, unafraid. Her gaze never leaving his, she reached up and caressed Nick's cheek, a knowing smile on her lips.

"What a handsome bouncer. Is he yours, or can anyone play with him?" She flicked a glance at Janette, who looked mightily pissed and ready to claw the girl's eyes out. With a blur of speed that even I had a hard time following Nick grabbed the stranger's wrist and held her hand away from his face.

"I'm not the bouncer. And you're making a very big mistake. I think you need to take your people and leave." Several others, all mortals, stood uneasily behind her, each carrying a musical instrument. At his words they edged back toward the door.

"What's the matter? Too old for a little rock and roll?" Roxie, whoever she was, wasn't backing down an inch, and my initial impression of her strength and age went up a notch. She looked and behaved like a fledgling, but no fledgling could have stood up to the combined force of Nick and Janette like that.

"What I am is too old for games. Stop this one. Now." His hand tightened on her wrist, but she refused to lower her gaze.

"Yes, by all means." Another voice, one that made the hair on my neck stand up again and had me taking a step back before I even saw the owner of that powerful instrument. He stepped out of the crowd as if it were a curtain and he was taking center stage. Lucien LaCroix, master vampire, was here and he was not amused. "Let us have an end to this tiresome game. Surely your…parents…taught you better. Or shall I?" Disapproval baked off LaCroix like heat, and several vampire members of the crowd bowed their heads fractionally before turning and walking away at his approach. The mortals remained oblivious to the power now crackling in the air, instead fascinated by the show we were putting on.

The source of LaCroix's displeasure didn't walk away, but she did lower her gaze fractionally in a token of respect.

"Lucien LaCroix. This is an honor. I had no idea you were a fan." Her tongue flicked against her upper lip. So much for respect. "Come for an autograph?"

"You know why I am here. This little show you are putting on must stop. Now." He walked toward her like a great white panther stalking its prey. LaCroix circled the woman, stopping behind her and bending his head to her ear…and her exposed throat. She froze, as if aware of how close to True Death she was. "Even such a…_bohemian…_society as ours must have its rules. Rules which are flaunted only at great cost." Thou Shalt Not Expose the Community was our version of the Golden Rule, one even the big boys obeyed. "Surely the one who made you explained this."

"Marcus never tired of reading me the riot act. Believe me, I know the rules." Her voice was pitched for the three of them alone. The canned music started up again, further masking their hushed conversation. From behind Nick I could see the Hungarian-looking bartender back at the bar, standing next to the stereo controls. One hand was beneath the bar, out of view, and he was watching the scene with unsmiling intensity. Janette definitely knew how to pick her staff.

"And while you are here, you will obey them," LaCroix concluded in a voice which brooked no disagreement. Janette and Nick had stepped forward, forming a triangle of power around the rogue vampire. Under their combined gaze Roxie at last faltered. Her eyes dropped and her shoulders lost their arrogant arch, and then she lifted her hands in a gesture of surrender not unlike the one I had made to Janette earlier.

"It's just an act. A stage show. They eat it up." She wasn't backing down, not quite, but it was close.

Not close enough. "It is an act far too close to reality. You may choose to risk your existence with this foolish game, but in doing so you also risk the existence of me and mine. And that, my dear girl, I can not and will not allow." LaCroix's intensity was scary and it wasn't even directed at me. For a moment Roxie met LaCroix's eyes, then she dropped her gaze and nodded.

"Okay, okay. I get the message. We'll bail. Never to again darken your doorstep and all that." She turned and made a gesture to the mortal musicians behind her. They had been standing close together as if for comfort, unable to hear the conversation but also unable to mistake the tension in the air. Now they nodded in relief and began to collect their instruments. Roxie turned back to the three elder vampires, some of her nerve returning.

"But you can't turn back the tide. They're ready to know about us. They _want_ to know about us. I'm just the messenger." There was something dancing in her eyes that set my nerves on edge. Madness, maybe.

"Have a care, my girl," LaCroix replied. "You must be aware of what can happen to the messenger of bad tidings."

"Who wants to live forever?" She flashed a toothy smile at us, then turned and sauntered out the door, her band mates trailing behind her. The three elder vampires shared a meaningful look among themselves and then LaCroix shook his head wearily.

"That…will be trouble."

"Mmm," Nick agreed. "Do you know her master, LaCroix? I don't recognize the name."

"Marcus is…an old friend. A very old friend, given to embracing youth in all its foibles and excesses. Still, I find it difficult to believe that he would have allowed _that_ to be inflicted upon the world." LaCroix looked for all the world as if he was speaking of a particularly obnoxious two year old. From his perspective he probably was.

"Perhaps he is unaware. This 'Roxie' has only recently appeared on the music scene. As she says, mortals now believe that her appearance is a guise, nothing more. So far she has not claimed it to be anything else," Janette explained.

"But her public life can't hope to stand up to the kind of investigation the media showers on celebrities. If she stays in the spotlight, sooner or later someone will discover her secret." Nick sighed and shook his head. "LaCroix, can you speak to Marcus? Maybe he can get her to stop this game before it's too late."

"A master with influence over his get? Why Nicolas, what a novel concept," LaCroix replied dryly. "But, in answer to your question, I haven't spoken to Marcus in centuries. I will make the attempt, but I fear that it may not be in time. Miss 'Roxie' appears to be developing a very ardent following."

"And there's never an Enforcer around when you need one." I spoke without thinking, then froze as three pairs of eyes suddenly locked in on me. "Sorry." Not sure if I should approach them or skulk away, I opted to stand very, very still.

"Mister Cohen," LaCroix acknowledged me with the barest of raised eyebrows. "I wouldn't have thought _you_ to be a supporter of our…law enforcement personnel." There was a tension in LaCroix's face that had nothing to do with my eavesdropping. As I watched his face faded back to a neutral mask, only his eyes still glittering with some strong emotion.

I shrugged and walked forward to join them. "I may walk the line, but at least I know there is one." Now that Roxie had left things seemed to be settling back to normal. Several mortals brushed past us to follow her out the door, and the rest formed a crush at the bar, their voices raised in excitement at what they thought they'd seen. "And somebody's got to put a lid on her before things get really out of hand," I added quietly. I was no fan of the Enforcers, but this was exactly the kind of thing those boys were supposed to protect us from. Well, that and mortals intent on playing Van Helsing. I like mortals as well as the next vampire—hell, more—but I have zero desire to wake up with a stake in my chest just because some guy decided to take exception to my lifestyle.

"I will attempt to speak to Marcus. Nicholas, perhaps you can discover where Miss "Roxie" is staying, hmm? It is my understanding that the police regularly follow the movements of celebrities such as she." The disdain in LaCroix's voice made me smother a grin in spite of the tension in the air. I wasn't sure if the elder vampire was more insulted by Roxie's behavior or Nick's association with such a plebian—and mortal- institution as the Toronto police force.

Nick nodded. "I will." Nick complained bitterly about LaCroix's influence in his life, but this time he seemed in perfect agreement with his master. I'd half-expected him to protest, to say that we had to play by mortal laws, not our own. That he'd agreed to LaCroix's request so quickly, when he had to know what LaCroix would likely do to the girl, wasn't like Nick.

But then again, neither was changing Nat's memories and damn near destroying her in the process. She'd sounded so bad on the phone, barely able to hold a conversation and slipping into fragments of French that made no sense at all. I ached to go to her, but what could I do? Defrag her hard drive? Nick was the one she needed. The memory of Nat's voice made my teeth clench, and when I came back to myself I saw that LaCroix was looking at me strangely.

"I'm sorry about all this," Nick said gently. He was holding Janette's hand in both of his, a look of wry tenderness on his face. "Of all the gin joints in the world…"

Janette sniffed disdainfully but made no attempt to retrieve her hand. "Please, Nicola. A 'gin joint'?" Her eyes were sparkling with sudden good humor, and I saw that Janette felt more than annoyance for Nick and his absences from her life. She still cared for him, mortal obsessions and all. "I think you insult me."

"I'll try not to do it again." There was definitely something between the two of them, and from the look on LaCroix's face he was anything but opposed to it. "I'll find out where she's staying. Maybe a private audience with her will help her change her mind."

_Like you did Natalie's?_ I bit back the words, just barely.

"And if not…" LaCroix picked up the thread of conversation. "We will make sure she does not repeat her error. Won't we, Nicholas?"

"Try to be subtle. I would very much prefer that the last place this Roxie was seen alive was _not _my establishment," Janette said dryly. There was no disrespect in her voice, though, and she was looking at LaCroix in supplication as she spoke.

"It may not come to that," Nick reassured her.

"And if it does," LaCroix asked.

"Then…we'll do what needs to be done. She can't be allowed to endanger us all." Nick said quietly. I got the feeling that there was regret in his voice, but if so, he'd buried it well. He let go of Janette's hand but held her gaze a moment longer.

"My, you have become pragmatic of late, have you not, Nicholas? Not that I disapprove, mind you. In fact, I find it…quite refreshing." Nick looked like he was going to say something, but LaCroix waved him off. "No matter. You have an address to find, and I believe that young Mister Cohen needs to speak to you with some urgency."

Nick looked troubled, but LaCroix does that to people. After a moment Nick nodded and gestured toward the entrance. "You're right. Come on, Jack. You look like you're ready for some fresh air."

"The understatement of the year." I nodded to Janette and LaCroix and then headed for the door with a sigh of relief. The night had already been way too exciting for my tastes, and the fun was really just about to begin. I had to accuse one of my best friends of something that was just this side of rape, and then beg him not only to admit it, but to put it right. Given the state of my social skills it was going to be quite a trick. Nick caught up with me out on the sidewalk. His Caddy was nearby, and I walked over to lean against its passenger door, trying to figure out how to begin and avoiding Nick's curious gaze.

"So what's on your mind," Nick asked finally. "I can't remember the last time I saw you out in public, Jack. Is everything all right?" The genuine concern in his voice made what I had to say that much harder.

"Hey, I'll have you know I get around plenty. Libraries, late-night movie houses, every Radio Shack known to man, support groups for the computer-obsessed—"

"C'mon, Jack."

"Natalie's." There. It was out. I braced myself and looked into his eyes.

"Nat's?" A dozen expressions flitted across Nick's face and were gone, leaving a weird, cautious neutrality behind. "Why would you go to see Nat, Jack?" Like any guy needed a reason to want to see Natalie. I should have been relieved that he didn't suspect how I felt about her, but instead I felt piqued. I pushed that away and plowed ahead.

"She needed me. She needed a friend."

"What are you talking about, Jack?" For a moment I saw real concern, but then it was replaced by a guarded look of self-protection and I lost my patience.

"You know damned well what I'm talking about! How could you do it, Nick? How could you hurt Nat like that?"

"It's not like that," Nick tried. His gaze flicked to The Raven behind me and then down to his hands, avoiding my gaze like the plague.

"The hell it's not! Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you didn't change her memories, Nick. Tell me you didn't mind-rape the woman you love."

He froze, and for a minute I thought he was going to admit everything. The raw pain I saw in Nick's face made me want to forgive him even this monstrous mistake. And it had to be a mistake, I reasoned. Nick would never deliberately hurt Natalie. Oh, he might be as thick as a brick, sometimes, but underneath it all he really lov—

"I don't love her." The words were so soft that for a second I almost persuaded myself I hadn't heard them. Nick's face was drained of all emotion, looking deader than any corpse I'd ever seen.

"The hell you don't." I might as well have been talking to the wall for all the reaction I got. "C'mon, Nick. It's me, remember? How many times have you told me how crazy you are about Nat?" My mind was reeling. Had everyone in the world suddenly gone insane? Nat loved Nick. Nick loved Nat, even if he'd never been able to say the words aloud. That was the way it was, world without end, amen.

"I love her mortality," Nick said quietly. "I envy her her ability to wake up with the sun, to eat, to breathe, to _live_." The last was said with a quiet conviction that at least _sounded_ like Nick. "And she's trying to help me regain my own mortality. That makes her very special to me, Jack. It doesn't mean that I'm in love with her."

"But, you, you—" I sputtered. It felt like someone had just reformatted my brain mid-process.

"I'm attracted to her," he admitted, not quite meeting my gaze. "But I came to realize that it was infatuation, at best. Desire born of a longing to be what she is. To have what she and every other mortal has. It's not love, Jack. Not even close."

"And what about Nat? What about _her_, Nick? Doesn't she get a say in it?"

"Natalie thought we had something more. When I tried to explain, it…hurt her. I just took away her pain, Jack. In time she'll forget all about me. She'll go on with her life. Find a husband, have children, then grandchildren. Things she was putting off because of me."

I felt a pang of guilt at that. Even in my most fevered dreams I couldn't offer Natalie those things any more than Nick could. And I knew what a sacrifice that was even more than Nick did. He, after all, had never had a wife and child of his own. How could you love someone and keep them from ever knowing that joy? How could you be that selfish?

_How could I?_

"You took away her choice." And it should have been her choice, damn it. Not Nick's. Not mine. Hers.

"I took away her pain," he repeated softly. His face was remote, his voice utterly without inflection. "It's better this way, Jack. She's not one of us. She didn't understand. She was angry, confused—"

She wasn't the only one. "And that was your solution? A little mind wash and everything's just the way you want it? Hell, why didn't you just wipe her clean? You could have made her forget everything, not just the dreary little fact that _she was in love with you!_ Why not, Nick? Why'd you pull out halfway through the rape?"

"It wasn't like that!" At least now I'd gotten a reaction out of him. Nick glared at me through eyes that had gone a warning shade of amber, his entire body trembling. I wondered blackly if we were going to end the night literally at each other's throats. "I had my reasons for what I did. And I don't have to explain them to you." There was an arrogance in his voice I'd never heard before, and it poured fuel on the fire of my anger.

"Yeah, I think you do." We were nose to nose now, neither of us willing to back down an inch. "Come on, Nick. What is it? You hoping she'll stay just a little bit infatuated? Enough to flatter your ego, but not enough to get in the way?" That sounded familiar, I thought. Nat's words came back to me in a rush. _I keep getting the feeling that Nick is using me. Being just nice enough to me to keep me interested in finding a cure, but not so interested that I become a nuisance_.

_Oh, God_. I took a step back, my hands clenched into fists. Had I really thought I knew him? Had I really?

"You bastard," I whispered. "You want the cure, don't you? If you made Nat forget she ever met you, she'd stop working to make you mortal again. And we can't have that, can we? God forbid that anything keep Don Quixote from his precious quest." I wanted to scream, cry, and throw up all at once. I'd settle for beating Nick senseless, I thought through a growing red haze. Nick was centuries older than I, and a better fighter by far, but I didn't care. The bastard had hurt Natalie.

"Yes." His voice sounded oddly strangled, but the word was clear enough. Nick had turned away from me, as if I didn't even matter, and was walking toward the driver's side of his car. "Natalie is uniquely qualified to help me." He turned to face me as he opened the door. I'd never seen eyes so empty. It was as if the Nick I'd known had died, leaving his corpse to walk around in his place. "And I won't let anything interfere with that." He dropped down onto the seat, his eyes never leaving mine. "Especially not someone like you." The force of his sudden contempt beat against me like a wave. "Go get a life, Jack. Stop trying to live in mine."

I opened my mouth but words refused to come out. Was that what I was doing? Living through Nick? Loving Natalie because he did? His anger and contempt was a physical thing, battering at my thoughts like a hurricane. I wanted to walk, no, _run_ away from it. I was a poor excuse for a vampire, I knew. Hiding in my basement, hiding behind my computer, too afraid of the world to take part in it. I took a step back, ready to slink away, and then Natalie's haunted face was in front of my eyes.

"You're not getting rid of me that easy," I told my former friend, clenching my hands to keep them from shaking. "You're going to make it right. You're going to repair her memories and tell Nat the truth. You want her out of love with you? Believe me, that'll do it." Of course, the revelation of Nick's betrayal would probably also put an end to her search for a cure. Apparently the thought had occurred to Nick as well. He shook his head.

"No. I won't do that. I can't." Again for just a second Nick looked miserably unhappy. He really did want that cure more than anything, I thought. He glanced behind me toward The Raven, and then with a blur of speed he was out of the car, grabbing me by the shirt and lifting me effortlessly off the ground. "Last warning." His voice was an angry growl. "Stay away from Natalie. Don't even try to undo what I've done. Or I will kill you." He shoved me away, sending me crashing into a car parked across the street. By the time I got to my feet he was already back in his car, and a moment later the Caddy peeled out, tires squealing. I dusted myself off and watched it go, shaking all over.

"What a remarkable display. It would appear that _someon_e is very much in love. How charming." LaCroix had appeared beside me without my even being aware of his approach. Man, that was seriously creepy. He was smiling an odd little half smile, looking like the cat that had just met up with the proverbial canary.

"Nick? That's what I thought, but…" I trailed off at LaCroix's widening smile and the fractional shake of his head.

"Oh, not Nicholas, my dear boy. I'll admit I had my doubts for a time, but it would appear that he is far more my son than I had realized. No, Nicholas is not in love with the good Doctor Lambert." There was a glint in his eyes as if something pleased him mightily. "_You_ are. I trust you will not have the same foolish scruples that Nicholas is so prone to?"

"Uh," I replied cleverly. "No, I think Nat would make a terrific—I mean, no! It's not like that," I quickly backpedaled. That sharp mind, that amazing beauty, preserved for eternity? Maybe Nat wouldn't mind trading a husband and children for immortal life. At least _I _was prepared to offer her that choice, I told myself.

"Excellent." If anything, LaCroix looked even more pleased. "Well, go on, dear boy. See to the lovely Natalie. You're quite right, you will have no chance of removing the impressions my dear Nicholas has left behind." It should have sounded condescending, but coming from LaCroix, who was I to argue? Besides, he was right. "You can, however, reinforce what has already been done. Smooth out the rough edges and unfortunate echoes, as it were. In fact, I would be quite pleased to help you with that myself, should the need arise." LaCroix looked almost devilishly pleased with the idea, which was enough to give me pause. Why would this master vampire care one way or another about a mortal? Something else was clearly at work here. Unfortunately, I had no idea what it could be.

"Thank you," I said cautiously. "I'll…talk to her. Just talk," I said firmly. But if Nick was telling the truth—and why wouldn't he be?—then Natalie wasn't his lady any more. Maybe she'd be so torqued off at vampires in general when I explained what had been done to her that she wouldn't want anything to do with me. Maybe not. There was only one way to find out. With a respectful nod to LaCroix I turned and walked down the alley behind The Raven and then took to the skies.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

At one in the morning Natalie's apartment complex was still and quiet. I walked through the lobby and took the stairs to the second floor, wondering what I was going to say. LaCroix was right. I had no hope of undoing the fix Nick had put on Nat's memories. The best I could hope for was to patch the faulty code that was crashing her system, leaving Nick's new software in place. I hated the idea of participating in Nick's deception, but Nat really was on the verge of crashing. I had to do _something_.

"Nat?" Her door was ajar. Inside I could hear the alarm I'd set on her computer chiming like crazy but there was no answer to my call from Natalie. I pushed the door open and listened. From the apartments on either side I could hear faint heartbeats, mortals deep in sleep. Sounds from the street below were louder; she'd left the window open. In February. But no sign of Natalie.

Not a living one, anyway. The thought pushed me inside and I checked each room quickly, pleading with a God who wasn't happy with me to show just a little mercy, just this once. Nat wouldn't be the first mortal to suicide over memories that she couldn't understand and couldn't get rid of. The apartment was a wreck, with clothes, papers, and half-eaten food scattered everywhere, but there was no sign of Nat. I started to check again, my heart in my throat, then forced myself to stop. Thinking was harder work, especially in my current state, but it was what Nat needed. Where would she go? Work? She was still on vacation, but most of her friends were there. If she couldn't talk to Nick, then maybe she had—

"_I will not trade Fleur for that!_" Natalie's voice, unmistakably. Something in her inflection and tone was strange, but I was beyond sweating the little stuff. Natalie was alive! The shout wasn't repeated, but as I ran to the open window I heard her voice, now soft and faint. She wasn't on the grass below, and the words were too clear to have come from another apartment. _The roof!_ I was out the window like a shot, touching down on the roof before I could consider if she was alone or not.

Natalie was alone, and not alone. Standing much too close to the far edge of the buildings' roof for my taste, she was holding an animated conversation with herself. Her filmy white nightgown whipped around her in the chill night breeze, her hair a floating, shifting cloak around her face.

"Nat!" She didn't react to my words, intent on her own garbled conversation. Most of the words were in French, but the accent was an unfamiliar one and I couldn't make out everything that she was saying. Occasional phrases came out in modern English, and those were chilling enough to freeze even my bones. I started walking slowly across the roof, not wanting to risk startling her.

"_Whose __heart do you choose to break, Nicholas?_" That, at least, made sense, even if the French Nat was using to speak the words didn't. Her voice was deeper than usual, with an inflection that was maddeningly familiar. "_I cannot live without you!_" The same language, but a completely different tone and inflection. I had almost reached her. Natalie spun around, her eyes wide and unseeing.

"…more satisfying than any food," Natalie whispered in that same husky voice, this time in English. Then she seemed to see me, her face softening into a gentle, loving smile that was only for me. "_It's as if we've been together forever_," she whispered softly in that foreign French. She took a step toward me, one pale hand reaching for my face. I was rooted in place, unable to move. _Natalie_, I wanted to say. _Oh, my Natalie…_

"_I_ _can't control it. I can't accept it. And yet it is!_" She spun away, walking with a man's stride toward the edge of the roof. "We are a force of nature." She shuddered and then I heard a soft sob. "You are…fascinating creatures." Nat's voice.

"Natalie?" I reached out and took her by the shoulder, guiding her away from the ledge. Her skin was like ice, her eyes dull and confused. "Come on. Let's get you inside."

"_It is her innocence that you love_," she said softly. "You revere all that is mortal."

"No," I replied gently. "Just one particular mortal." I slipped an arm around her shoulders, wishing that I had more body heat to lend her. She let me start guiding her back to the stairwell, but I didn't think she really knew I was there. I had opened the door to the stairs when she turned her head and looked at me steadily.

"I do not love this woman." Perfect English this time, and a perfect impression of a voice I knew all too well. _Nick_. Awareness and a soul-deep sadness flowed into Nat's eyes at the same moment. She tried to smile for me as a single tear spilled down her cheek, and then Natalie fainted dead away.

###

Natalie was stirring in my arms as I slipped through her window and into the living room. God knew I'd had fantasies of holding her in my arms often enough, but now that the reality was finally here it was too colored with worry to be enjoyable. I settled her down onto the couch as gently as I could, sitting down next to her and watching her face, wondering what the hell I could do to help. Her cat Sydney appeared from nowhere, mewing his concern and bumping his head against Nat's limp hand. At the touch Natalie shifted and blinked sleepily before snuggling up to me with a deep sigh of contentment.

"Nick," she murmured sleepily.

"No." I wanted so much to believe that Natalie wasn't still deeply in love with Nick. Wanted it more than I'd wanted anything in decades. But one look at Nat's vulnerable sleeping face, her lips turned up in a slight smile that was all for Nick, told me everything I needed to know. Maybe Nick didn't deserve the lady's love, but he had it.

Damn it.

I drew away from Nat and twisted to face her directly. She was sleeping, but I could see in her face the memories that were tearing her apart drifting just below conscious thought. Her face twitched in an uneasy frown and I reached out to touch her cheek.

"_Sleep_." The whammy I put behind it wouldn't have worked against an awake and alert Natalie, but her exhaustion gave me just enough of an in to send her where she wanted to go anyway-into a deep, restful sleep. The relief that spread across her face as the voices inside her were temporarily silenced was more than reward enough for the headache that settled in behind my eyes in response to the unaccustomed effort. I picked an afghan up off the floor and spread it over her, resisting the urge to kiss her on the forehead as I tucked it around her shoulders. The wind blowing in from the open window was cold enough to get even my attention, and I quietly got up and shut it before staring out into the darkness, trying to think.

The problem with making big changes to a mortal's memories was that you rarely got everything. Some little details, snippets of memories and sensations, almost always get missed in the sweep. Those fragments of memory usually faded away in time, but sometimes they can become echoes in the victim's head, telling her that what she remembers isn't quite right without being enough to tell her what right _is_. The apparent schism in reality will gradually take up all of her focus, driving her to madness. Nat wasn't there yet, but I was very afraid she was on her way. The best solution is to uninstall the new memories and replace the old files, but it took a skilled and very powerful vampire to make that happen. Nick wasn't willing, and I didn't have the skill or the power to even try. All I could do was try to remove the remaining bits of old memory code, and the idea of doing that to Natalie made me sick.

But the little scene I'd just witnessed on Nat's roof told me that it was even worse than that. Nick wouldn't have spoken to Natalie in French, and certainly not in a dialect that had disappeared, I finally realized, long before Natalie was born. Natalie wasn't just repeating bits of what Nick had told her when he began his mind wipe. She was reliving pieces of Nick's own history, and that was very, very bad news. I rested my forehead against the cool glass and closed my eyes in despair.

Using our powers to force a mortal to go against her basic nature was hard-it had taken me decades to really get the hang of it. In forcing Natalie the resistor to believe that she didn't love Nick, had _never_ loved him, Nick had pretty much had to pull out all the stops. That kind of reprogramming requires prolonged, intimate mental contact, and the data stream is rarely just one way. The result for poor Nat had been what I thought of as a mental virus. A virus that was now slowly but surely eating away at her core self, replacing it with a defective and incomplete copy of Nick's own thoughts and memories. Left unchecked, the virus would destroy her mind as surely as a bullet to the brain.

And, God help me, there wasn't a thing I could do to stop it.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Nick?"

Natalie's voice brought me from her kitchen at just short of a run. She was sitting up on the couch, the afghan and blankets I had piled on top of her pushed down into a rumpled jumble at her feet. She was blinking in the dim light that had slipped beneath her heavy living room curtains. I paused in the doorway, giving her a minute to get her bearings.

"No. It's just me. Jack." I turned on a light and walked in slowly, bearing a coffee cup that was miraculously unaffected by my sudden sprint. I smiled as she sniffed the air appreciatively. "Don't get your hopes up. What I know about making coffee I learned from that Folgers guy on TV." I handed her the cup, noting with relief that her hands seemed fairly steady as she accepted the cup and inhaled deeply over it. I let her take a sip before I asked, "Do you remember anything about last night?"

"Not much," Nat replied, her eyes glued to the coffee cup. "Just that, once again, I was saved by my knight in shining-" She broke off, Nick's presence suddenly heavy between us. "Or did I imagine that, too?"

A year ago Natalie and I had gotten into a little trouble with a crazy man and a pack of undead revenants. It was debatable as to who had saved who back then, but I understood what she meant. "No. You didn't imagine it. I was there, on the roof. You didn't imagine _anything_, Nat."

"But it _can't _be real," she protested, her hands cupped around the coffee mug for warmth. "I mean, what happened with the two of us last year, _that_ was weird. But the images in my head," she shook her head as if to clear it, then carefully set her cup down on the table. "Jack, it couldn't have happened. The clothes, the language—I speak a little French, but this—No. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but there is no way that these, these visions or whatever they are are real." _I'm going insane_, her face said plainly. Horror began to fill her face at the thought.

"They're real." I got up and walked around to face her, then sat down next to Natalie and took her hands in mine. "They're memories, Nat. They're just not yours."

###

"Nick did this." Natalie ran one hand through her snarled hair as she restlessly paced around the living room, her expression a tangle of several conflicting emotions. At the moment anger was coming out on top. "Because he loved me? No, because _I_ loved _him_? Jack, that's insane! Nick and I have always been-" She broke off uncertainly. "I mean, we've, of course there was always an attraction, but-"

"But," I agreed. "I can't explain the why, Nat. The Nick I knew would never have hurt you like this in a million years. All I can say is that he did."

"I just can't believe it," Natalie replied, frowning. "I mean, I know what I remember, okay? Nick and I have worked closely together both professionally and in trying to find a cure. It never went any further than that, Jack." She sounded so sure. Whatever else he was, Nick was good at what he did.

"And the flowers?" I pointed to the white roses on the table. They were past their prime and I should have tossed them when I picked up her apartment, but at this point I'd take any memory trigger I could get. "Or the pill box you bought Nick? I could show you about a hundred emails you sent me if it would help, Nat." I was in the ludicrous position of convincing the woman I loved that she was hopelessly in love with another guy. How did I get myself into these things, anyway?

"All I know for sure is that _something_ happened. These visions, these memories of France and London, and other places I can't even _begin_ to identify," she shook her head. "They aren't mine. Some of them even _fee_l like Nick, if that makes any sense, but others." She shrugged. "Nick is in them, but the feel is…different. Anger, desire, despair…some very intense stuff, Jack. But it's not Nick. And it most certainly is not me."

"We pick up things from those we drink from," I said hesitantly. "Maybe you're getting some of that second hand. All I can tell you is that you used to think differently than you do now. And that the change in your memories is what's causing your problems. I can't bring those old memories back, Nat. I wish I could." And I meant it. As much as I wanted her for myself I wanted Natalie whole more.

"I want to believe you, Jack." She turned to look at me. "What you're saying sounds so crazy, but it fits. I mean, even now I can feel," she broke off, closing her eyes and biting her lip. "Wow." After a few seconds she opened her eyes again and tried to smile. "Okay. So. How do we fix this? I want my mind back, Jack." This was the Natalie I'd fallen in love with. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Nat stood up straight, set aside her distress, and put her mind to work. "Can another vampire undo what," she stumbled, "what Nick did?" She was still having trouble accepting that Nick would do such a thing, 'whammied' memories or not. I knew exactly how she felt. "Can you?"

"No." I shrugged and looked away. "I'm not that good, Nat. I never will be."

"But, last year-"

"Last year I reached you, yeah. When you were half crazy with that revenant's bite. And even then I never tried to change you, Nat. All I did was reinforce what you already are." _A brave, strong, beautiful lady_. I didn't say the words aloud, but I knew they were showing on every line of my face as I looked up at her from my place on the couch. For just a moment something flickered across Natalie's face in response that must have been my frayed nerves showing me what I wanted to see.

"Don't sell yourself short, Jack. I think there's a lot more to you than you let anyone believe. Even yourself."

"Nah." I looked away, shifting my gaze down to my hands and shrugging uncomfortably. "With me, it's 'what you see is what you get.' I'm just not that deep, Nat. Or that good. I can't undo what he did to you," I repeated miserably.

"So who can?" Nat sat down next to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Come on, Jack. I know you. There is no way you spent the entire day here without coming up with five different possible solutions, minimum." She squeezed my shoulder lightly. "Or do you really expect me to believe you stayed just to clean my apartment?"

"Hey, I had to have something to do while you snoozed," I managed. I hadn't spent the daylight hours away from the safety and security of my fortress of a home voluntarily in decades. Picking up Nat's place had helped keep me from literally climbing the walls, but she didn't need to know that. "Okay, I did think of a couple of things." I stole a glance at her, then turned my head to watch Sydney preparing to pounce on a brightly colored ball.

"Just knowing the truth should help some," I began hesitantly.

"Knowing that the guy I was in love with thinks I'm 'inconvenient'? Yeah, that helps." Nat smiled wanly. "Sorry. Go on, Jack."

"What I meant was, now you know what's real, and what to fight against. And if you keep your strength up you'll be better able to fight off the intruding thoughts. To quote my mother, "Eat, eat. What, you want to be skin and bones?'"

"I'll bet she nagged you every day," Nat said with a warm smile. "And that you loved every minute of it."

"Well, most of it," I admitted with a return smile. "It's good advice, Doctor." My smile faded as the impact of what we were up against hit me again. "And try to get enough sleep. I can help with that much, at least."

Nat nodded. "And then?"

"I can't give you back what you lost, but I think I can finish what Nick started. Erase the little niggling memories that conflict with all the rest. Getting rid of those echoes will help even more than food and rest."

"You can do that?" Nat didn't look like she liked the idea much, but I could see that she understood how it could help. Smart and practical, that's my Natalie. "But I'm a resistor, Jack. You said that you couldn't-"

"There's a rapport between us. From last year," I explained quickly. "And you wouldn't be fighting me. I thought about it all day, believe me. If you'll trust me, I think I can make it work."

"And those memories you say I have, they'd be gone forever? I would never remember," she looked away from me, suddenly uncomfortable for no reason I could see, "I'd never remember loving Nick?"

"Yeah," I said simply.

"But nothing else would change?"

"We'll still have Nick's memories in your head to deal with," I began, and then paused as she shook her head.

"That's not what I meant. Well, it is, and it isn't. What I was asking was, well, you're Nick's friend. If I'm no longer involved with Nick," she swallowed, "If I'm just an inconvenient ex, what about us? I'll be honest with you, Jack. I could really use a friend right now."

Nat using 'us' in the context of her and me knocked me for a loop, and there was a lag before I could respond. Forcing myself to meet her gaze, knowing that my face was probably going to give away every ounce of my feelings for her, I reached out and took her hands in mine. "_I will always be your friend_," I said as clearly and simply as I knew how. "No matter what happens. It's non-negotiable. Okay?"

"Okay." A weight seemed to fall from her shoulders. Nat let go of my hands and gave me a warm hug that was over far too soon. "Thank you." Pulling away, Nat wiped at her eyes and tried to smile. "I can't say I'm wild about anyone playing with my memories again, Jack, but I trust you. If there's really no other way then…then I guess that's what we have to do."

Those words made me feel even warmer than her embrace had. After everything that had been done to her, she could still trust a vampire? Trust _me_? Incredible. "Okay," I said quietly. "We'll do it. And as for the rest, LaCroix said he could help," I went on, not sure I could trust myself with anything more personal right now. "He's a little spooky, but there's no doubt that he-"

"No." Nat was off the couch, shaking her head and backing away from me, her arms crossed protectively across her chest. "Nope. Uh-uh. Not LaCroix."

"You've met the guy, I see." When had that happened? Nick had always taken great pains to keep Nat away from his master. LaCroix must have made quite an impression, whenever it was. "Okay, no LaCroix." I walked to her and put my hands on her shoulders. She was shaking. "No LaCroix. Bye-bye, creepy master vampire. Okay?"

"_You_ think he's creepy? I would have thought vampires would be immune to that kind of thing." Nat was calming down now that going to LaCroix was a non-issue and I let her change the subject without pursuing it like I should have.

"No ma'am. The guy gives me a serious case of the willies." I guided her back to the couch and sat down next to her. "You want to avoid him, that's fine with me. But we are going to have to talk to Nick."

"Nick? Why? I thought you said he wouldn't help."

"That was when I was asking him to undo what he did. Nick thinks he's doing what's best for everyone, Nat. There's no way I'm going to get him to change his mind on that."

"Then why-"

"Because he doesn't know about the memories the two of you are sharing. It may be hard to believe, but Nick does still care about you." Nat make a small sound of disgust and I grinned briefly. "He wouldn't want you to suffer like this, Nat. I know it. I think I can get him to help us fix this." I sighed. "If he's still speaking to me. We got into it pretty bad last night."

"Over me." Nat squeezed my hand. "I'm sorry, Jack. I know how close you two were."

"Not that close, apparently. I still can't believe that he—well, anyway. I'll talk to him," I promised. "I'll make him understand how bad this is. He'll come around." I hoped. Nat was sitting close to me, her eyes warm with concern. For a minute I allowed myself to hope that, maybe, just maybe, when this was all over…

"I need to take a shower." I got up and walked quickly toward the bathroom. When I stopped at the door and turned back to Nat she was standing behind me with a gentle smile on her face. "Let me get cleaned up and I'll go find Nick." I looked down at my t-shirt, which was now liberally coated with cat hair and smelled faintly of pine cleaner. "Maybe I'd better make a pit stop at home first."

"I think I can help you there," Nat said with a smile. "Go. Take your shower. I'll be here when you get out."

"You'd better be," I told her, a foolish grin on my face, before fleeing into the bathroom and shutting the door solidly between us.

###

By the time I finished my very cold shower Nat was dressed in neat jeans and a clean white blouse, her hair in a graceful ponytail that spilled down her back in a flood of golden brown. She looked a hundred percent better, but the strain around her eyes told me that things were far from okay.

"Nick's working tonight," I said, "so I'll check in with the department first, see if they know where he is." I wouldn't let them tell him I was looking for him, I'd decided in the shower. After last night I was probably the last person in the world Nick would want to talk to.

"I think I can help you out there." Nat said dryly. She gestured to the television screen. Walking over to stand next to her, I saw that the evening news was on. It was a crime scene. The camera panned to an on-site reporter.

"Once again, Toronto Police are reporting that the Montreal-born shock rocker known as Roxie has died, murdered not an hour ago here in Toronto Island Park. At this time authorities are declining to provide additional information but we know that Roxie and her band were scheduled to perform a concert here in the park later this evening. We'll have further details as they become available. Back to you, Tom." The camera panned back briefly to the crime scene, closing in on Nick and Schanke interviewing a security guard before cutting back to the studio.

"Huh."

"I heard about her." Natalie turned the television off with a thoughtful frown. "She was some kind of vampire-wanna be, wasn't she? I remember seeing a music video a couple of months back. Bloodbath, I think it was called. _Very _dramatic," Nat assured me with a slight smile.

"She was more than a wanna-be." We walked to the door, my mind already a thousand miles away. Was this Nick's doing? Hard to believe, but after last night I wasn't sure about anything when it came to Nick. "With all the cameras around it might take me a while to get Nick alone. I'll call you in a little while and see how you're doing, okay?"

"Jack." Something in Nat's voice stopped me in my tracks. I turned around and looked at her quizzically. "You're doing it. Shutting me out. Just like Nick always," she hesitated, suddenly uncertain. "If this affects Nick, then it affects me. At least for now," she said with just a trace of bitterness. "Don't try to protect me from what you think I shouldn't know, Jack."

"You're right." I hadn't been trying to protect her, not really, but Nat deserved better from me than silence, even if that was what I was best at. I touched her arm lightly by way of apology. "Nick and I ran into Roxie last night. She's one of us, and she's breaking all the rules with that stage show of hers. Nick was going to find out where she was staying. I think he and LaCroix were going to have a little chat with her before the Enforcers did."

"You think that Nick-?"

"I doubt it. He was just going to talk to her at first. And this is too flashy, too public. Not Nick's style at all." That gave her pause. Natalie wasn't used to thinking of Nick as a killer. "Either way, it doesn't have anything to do with us," I assured her.

"You're probably right. I'm just…feeling a little paranoid right now, I guess. Go. Talk to Nick. I'll be fine."

"You're sure?" I didn't like the idea of leaving Nat here alone, but…

"Absolutely." At my look she relented. "Probably. I think. Seriously, Jack, I'll be okay." She swallowed. "Just…well, why don't you give me your beeper number? At the risk of sounding desperately needy, I like the idea of being able to reach you if things go a little acid-flashback—_way_ back—on me."

I shrugged. "Don't have one. And before you start in on me about being behind the times," I added with a forced grin, "Who exactly would I give the number to? I mean, c'mon. Everybody knows I never leave the house."

"Well, you're not home now, are you? Here." Nat reached into her purse and pulled out her own beeper. She handed it to me with a shy smile. "Now you are officially connected to the outside world. And to me, which as we all know is much more important."

"It is," I agreed, smiling faintly as I tucked the beeper into my back pocket. And Nick let this one get away? Incredible. "Thanks for the loan, by the way." I tugged at the gray t-shirt that had been outside the bathroom door when I'd finished cleaning up. "I'll call as soon as I know something."

"Thank _you_. For everything." Nat took a step toward me and then we were almost touching, our faces just inches apart. I could feel her warm breath on my skin and smell the sweet, musky scent of her body. I leaned in and Nat met my gaze, her eyes uncertain.

"Nat, I…" Losing my nerve, I kissed her cheek gently. "I'll see you soon."

"I'll be waiting."

She hadn't exactly fallen into my arms, but the look Natalie gave me as she shut the door was enough to send tingles all the way to my toes. I was smiling as I left her building and hailed a cab, suddenly sure that everything was going to turn out all right.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"Man oh man oh man." Nick's partner Don Schanke shook his head as a uniformed officer corralled a black-clothed teen and ushered him back behind the yellow tape marking the edges of the crime scene. "What is it about people these days, Nick? A celebrity gets drunk, gets pregnant, or, God forbid, takes a few not-so-family-friendly home movies and the whole world comes to a screeching halt. I haven't seen this kind of nuttiness since that Rebecca murder case last year." He sighed heavily. "I tell you, partner, in my day we were just a _little_ more restrained, you know?"

"Mmm. Like when the Beatles came to the States, or Elvis appeared on Lawrence Welk, or when the Christians first went up against the lions?" Nick was smiling, but the lines on his face said he had more on his mind than sparing with his partner.

"When the Lions played who? I didn't know you were a football fan, Nick. Anyway, all I'm saying is that people get a little bit crazy when somebody famous bites it. Okay, so this one is little more gruesome than your average mugging gone bad, but it's hardly the first time a perp tried to hide the evidence with a can of gasoline."

The body had been burned. Well, that was something. I shifted impatiently, willing Schanke to spot some key piece of evidence far, far, away, or even just need to take a leak. Making my way past the crowds and through the trees to my position at the edge of the clearing hadn't done my nerves any good and had taken more time than I'd have liked. How was Nat holding up? Just one slip, one moment of tired inattention, and Nick's memories would overwhelm her like they had back on the roof. Remembering how close she'd been to the edge made me grit my teeth in helpless frustration. If I hadn't been there…it if happened again while I wasn't there… My fingers dug into the bark of the tree I'd been leaning against in helpless frustration.

At the sound Nick's head flicked instantly in my direction. He had no problem seeing me hiding in the shadows, now that he was looking. Schanke was a beat behind, reacting to Nick's movement rather than anything his mortal senses could pick up.

"We got trouble, partner?" People tended to dismiss Schanke as a somewhat-loveable buffoon, but the detective was all business as his hand dropped to his holstered revolver, his husky body tensing for possible danger. "What do we got, Nick?"

"Nothing." Well, thanks for that, Nick. "Just…an old friend. Someone I didn't expect to see again." Nick clapped his partner on his shoulder. "It's okay." Both Schanke and I calmed down at Nick's words. Maybe we'd get through this without bloodshed, I began to hope. Despite what I'd told Nat I wasn't sure what kind of a reaction I'd get from Nick. I mean, he _had_ threatened to kill me last night. Nick pointed at an approaching officer. "Look, why don't you see what the patrolman wants while I take care of this? Shouldn't take too long."

"Yeah, sure," Schanke agreed. "He's probably going to tell us that the mayor called, asking if we've solved the case yet. I tell you, these celebrity cases…" Grumbling, the detective strolled over to intercept the uniformed police office. I started walking toward Nick, forcing myself to keep to mortal speed. He met me halfway.

"I know you said—"

"About last night—"

We both gave a shaky laugh and I gestured for him to go ahead.

"How's Nat?" The pain and concern in his voice seemed real. Before last night I'd have believed it without question. "I swear to you, Jack, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her." He looked like he wanted to try to justify himself and I waved him off.

"She's not good," I said bluntly. "Look, I'm not here to argue about what you did—about what happened," I amended. No sense in getting into a fight I couldn't hope to win, especially when Natalie needed Nick. "You don't want her to remember what she felt for you? Fine. It's done." I looked over Nick's shoulder and saw the patrolman Schanke had been talking to turn and walk away. I was almost out of time. I pulled my gaze back to Nick, who suddenly looked miserably unhappy. "Look, I can finish what you started, okay? I told Nat what happened and she understands what needs to be done. But Nick—"

"You told Nat?" He looked down at my borrowed shirt, then back at my face, his lips a narrow line. "So she knows what happened."

"Yeah." The word hung in the silence between us like an accusation. "But it's not just the trace memories, Nick. When you—"

"Can I call it, or can I call it?" Schanke sauntered over to join us, looking both self-satisfied and disgusted. "Not the mayor, but a member of the city council. Here in the flesh, insisting on speaking to the detectives in charge. Better straighten your tie, Nickie-boy." He turned his attention to me. Beneath the bumbling, amiable exterior his brown eyes didn't miss a thing as he gave me the once-over while I wondered at his deep tan, so out of place in Toronto's chilly February. "You're with the Coroner's Office? Don't think we've met. Don Schanke."

We shook hands. "Jack Cohen." I looked down at my shirt and saw Nick follow my gaze. _Property of the Toronto Coroner's Department._ "No, the shirt belongs to a friend. I'm in computers."

"The new technology. Always the young ones who go for that, right, Nick? The wave of the future." He released my hand, his eyes never leaving my face. "I'm sorry. Am I intruding?" He didn't look sorry. Nick had some very loyal friends.

"Nah." Nick smiled easily. If he could fake calm that easily, I thought, was the concern he'd shown for Natalie a few moments before any more real? "We were just talking about a mutual friend. One who's a little under the weather."

"I'll stay with her," I told Nick. "But she could really use a visit from an old friend. One that she shares so many old memories with." I kept my tone level, but Nick's eyes widened slightly as he took in my meaning.

"I'll be there as soon as I can," he promised. For a minute the old Nick was back, the one I would have trusted with my life—and with Natalie's. Nick would make this right, I thought with relief. He would—in the blink of an eye that Nick was gone, replaced by the wary-eyed stranger I'd met the night before. I was still trying to process the change when a familiar voice made me jump.

"But not too soon, I trust." It was LaCroix. He strolled up to us like he owned the place, a faintly disapproving look on his face. "Personal issues will have to wait, Detective. The mayor's office assures me that this case will be given your _full _attention."

"You're the councilman Jenkins said was coming up?" Schanke's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "I know you. You're not on the council. You're that guy—"

"I'm sure you're mistaken." LaCroix brushed Schanke aside with a gesture and a sure, deft touch of his mind.

"Sorry. Must have been thinking of some other guy." For just a second I thought Schanke was going to pursue the matter in spite of LaCroix's hypnotic suggestion but then he let it drop, a look of confusion on his face. I had to force my expression to neutrality; that kind of casual manipulation of mortals has never sat right with me.

"I heard one of the lovely young television reporters asking for an interview. I'm sure she would be delighted if you would indulge her, Detective," LaCroix informed him.

"Yeah." Schanke shook his head as if to clear it. "I think I can help her out. Give me a few minutes, huh Nick?" Not waiting for an answer Schanke turned and headed back toward the waiting crowd.

"So. Our troublesome young 'Roxie' is suddenly no longer trouble. One could have wished for a less…gaudy…solution, but beggars, as they say, cannot be choosers. Not your doing, I take it, Nicholas?"

Nick shook his head. "She had already left for the park when I arrived at the hotel this evening. A patrolman found the body. They identified her by her purse and some jewelry she was wearing." He seemed twitchy, his gaze never quite meeting LaCroix's.

"Mmm. So there were no witnesses?" Something in LaCroix's voice made me turn. In spite of the very public and potentially very problematic death of one of our own the master vampire looked sleekly pleased.

"None," Nick replied, his gaze on the smoldering remains now surrounded by police technicians.

"Well, that _is_ fortunate." LaCroix adjusted his cufflinks, a faint, almost reptilian smile on his face. "You will see that the investigation does not go places it should not, won't you."

"Of course." Nick's face was still and remote, and he drew his gaze back to his master with difficulty. "I'll take care of it, LaCroix." Nick looked away again, his hands clenching briefly into fists, and I wondered what I was missing.

"I am sure you will. And I'm sure the mayor will be quite pleased," he added with a mocking smile. Schanke, I saw, was on his way back to us. "Then I shall take my leave." He turned and looked at me, his smile never wavering. "Shall I stop by the good Doctor Lambert's home later this evening? I was quite serious in my offer of assistance last night, Mr. Cohen. I have," and he looked at Nick, his expression unreadable, "some small experience in these things."

"No," Nick and I spoke at the same time and with the same voice. Natalie would just freak out if LaCroix showed up, I knew, and I was really starting to dislike the idea of the Night Crawler having a hand in rewriting Natalie's software, if you get my drift. "Thank you," I told the master vampire. "I don't want to bother you with this. Nick and I will mop up."

"It won't be difficult," Nick agreed. His expression had grown cool, as if Nat was some unpleasant social obligation that he needed to deal with. I had to bite my lip to keep from telling him not to do Nat and me any favors, and had almost lost the struggle anyway when a familiar voice cut in.

"Hey Nick, looks like we caught a break." Don Schanke strolled up, smiling from ear to ear. His smile faltered as he saw LaCroix. Schanke blinked twice and went on, more subdued. "Sorry to interrupt," he told LaCroix, "but you wanted to be kept in the loop, am I right?"

"What did you find, Schanke?"

"Oh, nothing much, partner. Just the only witness to our homicide. The TV chick had disappeared, go figure, so I thought I'd grab a hot dog from that little cart they always have in the park, you know? Only the hot dog guy wasn't there. Using my keen detective skills," he tapped his forehead for LaCroix's benefit, "I figured he mighta gone to the john, which was just down the path. He was there all right. Hiding in the far stall and puking his guts out. Guy saw the whole thing and freaked out. He was pretty rocky, but I got his story."

"Well done, Detective," LaCroix all but purred. "Your skill is…most impressive. So you have a description of the, what do you call them, the perp?"

"Yeah, well, not a great one, but it's a start, right?" Schanke looked down at his notes. "Blond hair, dark trench coat, maybe 5'11, six foot, about one-eighty. The hot dog guy says, get this, the guy came up behind her and _stabbed her with a wooden stake_. Looks like somebody took Miss Roxie's stage show just a wee bit too seriously, don't you think?"

"It does look that way," Nick managed. "Nice work, Schank."

"Thanks. The witness says that he doused her with something from a gas can and lit her up right after." Schanke shook his head. "Guy must be pretty strong to run a stake through a woman's chest like that in one blow. Anyway, that's when our witness bugged out. I'm thinking we need to check out the local Goth groups and the wanna-be Dracula roleplayers," Schanke rolled his eyes, "as well as the local Roxie fan club. Can't be too many of _those_ types that fit the description."

I could think of one. I was staring at Nick before I realized that I was doing it. The height, the hair, the weight, the strength…it all fit. And Nick would know that fire would get rid of any embarrassing vampiric evidence.

"Sounds like a plan," Nick told his partner. I looked away as he noticed me staring. "Jack—"

"Well, it is good to know that the police have this deplorable situation well in hand. I shall look forward to reading your report, detectives." With an amused look for me and a more lingering one for Nick LaCroix turned and glided away.

"Jack," Nick tried again, but I waved him off.

"When you get done with your…investigation," I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice for Schanke's sake, "you know where to find us, Nick. Detective." With a nod for Schanke I turned and walked off, losing myself as quickly as I could in the crowd of gawkers, so upset over this new revelation about Nick that I forgot to flip out at the presence of so many strangers all around me. And wondering how the hell I could have been so wrong about someone…and about how very good that "us" had sounded.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

I headed back to Nat's place, wondering what the hell I was going to tell her. Nick would come, I was almost sure of it. But he would come to finish what he'd started, nothing more. This wasn't the Nick I knew. Of course the traitorous part of my mind, the part that wanted Natalie for myself, kept whispering that maybe I'd never known him at all, but somehow that just didn't feel right. While my social skills are pretty much nonexistent I'm a decent observer, and had seen the whole Nick and Nat relationship from up close. If Nick had been using Natalie all along I was Harrison Ford. So what had changed?

I hadn't come up with anything by the time I reached her apartment, but I'll admit I was somewhat distracted. I hurried upstairs, thinking about how bad she'd been the night before…and remembering the look she'd given me when I left just a couple of hours ago, a look that had been the polar opposite of bad. I rapped softly on the door and smiled in relief when a pale and strained but undeniably sane-looking Natalie answered almost immediately. My smile faded as I saw the look in her eyes. "Nat?"

"Hi." She gave me a smile that you normally reserved for door to door salesmen and visits from the in-laws before stepping back and gesturing for me to come in. "So what did you find out?"

"Nick said he'd do it. He's caught up in the Roxie investigation, but he'll come over as soon as he can." I looked searchingly into Natalie's face. "Are you okay? I mean, you know, as good as can be expected?"

"I'm fine. Well, like you said, as good as I'm going to get with an eight hundred year old murderer in my head." There was something watchful in the look Natalie gave me that I'd never seen before, as if she'd just found out something about me that she didn't like much.

"Um, yeah, guess that's one way of looking at it." Mystified, I watched as Nat turned without another word and walked back into the kitchen. When she picked up a flour-coated rolling pin I followed, wondering if I should be worried that Nat had a big wooden stick in her hands. She slammed the pin down on a pile of bread dough and began ruthlessly rolling it out, her lips in a thin line that brooked no polite chit chat. The silence stretched out into the painfully awkward, something I wasn't exactly unfamiliar with but that had never happened before between Natalie and me. After a while I couldn't stand it any more and spoke up. "Look, um, did I do something wrong? Whatever it is, I'm sorry. You know how suckful," I flinched at the unintended pun, "my social skills are."

"It's nothing," she said abruptly, then looked at me and softened her tone. "I'm just…something just made me realized how much of my life has been taken over by the vampire world, Jack. Nick, Nick's friends," she gave me a look that wasn't exactly unfriendly, but was far from the way she'd looked at me two hours ago, "all the cases I've falsified to help the vampire community—at the risk of my own career, by the way—all the time I've wasted on attempted cures that Nick was never going to take seriously. And then there are the hours I keep these days. I might as well be a vampire myself, Jack."

"Well, you know, that wouldn't be such a bad—" I began.

"I'm _mortal_, Jack. I'm not ashamed of that. I like sunshine, and baked bread, and not having to keep everything and everyone that's important to me a secret. And, here's a thought, I'd like a life of my own. Maybe, just maybe, a life that includes a house with a white picket fence and a husband and kids waiting inside. Is that so much to ask, Jack?"

"No, of course not. You've always had that choice, Nat." I was totally confused, and it showed on my face.

"Have I? I feel like my eyes have been opened, Jack. I have been used and manipulated for Nick's benefit and the benefit of the whole vampire community ever since I met him. Manipulated to the point that now I'm drowning in it. I knew that Nick, that all of you, are killers, okay? Intellectually, I knew. But these memories, they're so dark, so, so _hateful_," she shook her head and punched the bread dough hard enough to rattle the dishes on the counter, "it's forced me to really look at what Nick is. What you all are.

"You're killers, Jack. Killers that feed on people like me."

"Nat," I tried. "That's not," except it was. Maybe in modern times we didn't kill for our blood, mostly, but we all had. Nick was old enough to have kills in the thousands. Even I… "Well, yeah, we feed on mortal blood, most of us, but we don't have to kill anymore, Nat."

"I'm sure that's a great comfort to all the people you've killed in the past, Jack." Natalie flipped the bread dough over and started again, rolling it out with a look of fierce concentration on her face. Was this some new aspect of the echoes, I wondered? Whatever it was, it wasn't a change for the better. I felt our friendship slipping away and had no idea of how to stop it.

"Yeah," I agreed, not knowing what else to say. And what was there? We all had our dark pasts, even the little weakling vamps like me. My absolute lack of a defense seemed to soften her anger, and when Nat looked up at me she managed a small smile.

"Sorry. I know you're trying to help, Jack. I just…had my eyes opened, that's all. And I can't help but think that maybe what Nick did was for the best. It hurts like hell, but excising something rotten always does. Then you heal and go on with your life. So, yeah. I'll be glad to see Nick one last time. And then I think it's time Natalie Lambert went back to the land of the living."

###

I hadn't known what to say to that. Natalie had turned her attention back to her bread, leaving me to stand there in a spectacularly awkward, tongue-tied silence. After a few minutes I went back into the living room and sought out the comfort of her computer. Computers are safe. They're logical, they're predictable, and never once had a computer made me feel as lost and confused as I did then. I sat down in front of her computer and killed the screen saver.

And just like before Nat's computer dragged me head first into its seductive embrace. The trap I'd set had been sprung, leaving a literal red flag and a host of error messages splashed across her monitor screen. I started wading carefully through them, aware that I was playing against someone else who was very good at this particular game. He'd tried to erase his trail behind him, leaving behind some nifty little smart bombs that would fry Nat's hard drive if I tried to trace him and failed. It was exactly the kind of challenge I thrived on, and I cracked my mental knuckles and got to work.

When I came back to the world it was to the smell of blood. Cow blood, I identified automatically, and warm, no, reheated. I blinked as Natalie set a cup of the stuff in front of me.

"Here. I was keeping some around for emergencies. I didn't think you'd found time to stop for a bite." A ghost of the old Nat shone briefly in her eyes and then disappeared as she crossed her arms protectively across herself and continued, her voice cool and professional. "Any luck?" It was like she was consciously pushing me away, I thought with a pang. I might as well have been the Maytag Repairman for all the warmth Nat had put into the question.

"Yeah. I have an address. He used half a dozen false IP addresses, and a couple of," I stopped. "But you don't care about any of that. What matters is that I know where this guy lives, Nat."

"Maybe I should just turn this over to the police. The regular police," she added with a faint, rueful smile. "I mean, this _is_ illegal, right?"

"Yep. But, well," Natalie wasn't going to like this. Bad Timing, that was my middle name. "Odds are pretty good that it's got something to do with us. With vampires," I clarified. There was no other 'us', was there? "Why don't you let me check it out first? If he's just some mortal who's after you 'cause of some case you're working on, I'll hand over my records and you can sick the boys in blue on him. If it's not…"

"The only thing on my computer that a vampire would find interesting is my work on a cure for Nick. I'd share that with anyone who asked, Jack." And she meant it. Natalie genuinely thought she was helping us. She started to say more and then frowned, her hands going to rub at her temples.

"Yeah, well, that might be the problem. A lot of us wouldn't appreciate being thought of as some kind of disease to be cured," I said dryly. "If you ever do come up with a cure, Nat, it could tear the Community apart. Or be used as a weapon of genocide if it falls into the wrong hands. If somebody thought you were getting too close they might decide to shut down the project for good."

"Kill me, you mean." Nat's whole body had stiffened in anger, her lips pressing into a thin, pale line. "That's what they—" She broke off, her face suddenly crumpled and her eyes closing in pain. "_Tueur__. __Meurtrier_," she muttered in a voice that wasn't quite her own. She bit her lip and shook her head. "Damn it. I just start to think I've got a handle on this, and then," she opened her eyes, staring at me bleakly as memories that weren't her own again filled her mind. I stood up, wanting to reach for her but knowing that my touch would be unwelcome, and watched as pain and confusion replaced the anger on her face. Nat ran her hands through her hair, trembling like a violin string and blinking back sudden tears.

"Oh, God, I can't do this," she whispered. "I-_I_ _can't control it. I can't accept it, I—_No!" She started to reach for me and stopped, a brief, aborted gesture that broke my heart. Wrapping her arms around herself instead, Nat tried to speak as tears glimmered in her eyes. Had I never known anyone this strong, I wondered? This brave? "I-I'm sorry, I'm not angry at you, Jack, it's just, just, he said all the things I haven't wanted to think about and I don't know what's _real _any more and I _hate_ being a victim and I _know_ I'm being used and Nick doesn't love me and oh I, _I am so scared_." She broke off her torrent of words with a helpless sob and I pulled Natalie into my arms.

"Shhhh. It's going to be all right, Nat. I promise, I'll find a way to fix this." I stroked her hair, breathing in the warm, sweet scent of her as I whispered reassuring things in her ear. I'd find a way, I promised myself. Even if it meant begging LaCroix to finish what his misbegotten son had started. Natalie clung to me as if she were drowning, sobs wracking her body as it pressed against mine.

"He doesn't love me, Jack. Everything I remember tells me that he never did, that we were always just friends, and yet there is this, this _hole_ in my heart that just keeps bleeding and bleeding—"

"I know. I'm sorry, Nat. If I could make him love you I would. You deserve so much better than this." The ache in my own chest was so bad that it was hard to speak. "But it'll be over soon. And you'll find some mortal guy who'll cherish the hell out of you. A guy who will give you all of those things you've been missing out on because of us."

"Yeah?" She sniffed and managed a wan smile through her tears. "To tell you the truth, I'm not all that sure I even _want_ the white picket fence and the 2.5 kids, you know? I just want, wanted, not to be alone. To be able to wake up every evening with someone who loves me lying there next to me. To know that to just _one person_ I was the most important thing in the world." She made a sound that was a cross between a laugh and a sob. "Is that so much to ask?"

"No." My voice was gravelly and I was glad her face was buried in my shoulder so she couldn't see the look on my face. "No, it's not too much to ask. Nat, I," And then Sidney appeared, meowing plaintively and wrapping himself around our ankles, saving me from making an even bigger fool of myself than usual.

"Hey there, big boy. Have I been ignoring you? Sorry, baby. Momma's been a little bit, well, distracted." Natalie sniffed and pulled gently away from me, her beautiful face showing her struggle to regain her hard-won control. God, she was strong.

"Momma's had cause." I released her and lightly touched her cheek. "You're going to make it, Nat. I know you will."

"I can do this," she agreed shakily, wiping at the tears on her face. "God, I hate this, you know? This feeling of being out of control." She took a ragged breath, and then a second that sounded less shaky. "Okay. No more meltdowns for at least an hour, promise." She bent down and picked up the cat, snuggling it close. "How about fixing a little liquid heaven for the crazy lady, huh?" I looked without thinking at the mug of cow blood Natalie had brought in and she laughed. Weak and shaky though it was that sound was music to my ears. "Coffee, Jack."

I smiled, glad beyond words to have some of the old Natalie back. Picking up my cooled cup of blood, I nodded. "You got it. Anything else?"

"Peanut butter sandwich?" she asked, her eyebrows lifted in entreaty, before sitting down on the couch with the cat and snuggling him close. Lucky cat, I thought.

"Peanut butter I think I can handle."

###

"Have company while I was gone?" I handed Nat her usual mug of coffee and set the plate with her sandwich down on the coffee table in front of her. "I noticed the coffee cups in the sink. And this." I held up the business card that I'd found tucked away in the cabinet when I got a plate out for Nat's sandwich. The card had a symbol of a shield and sword and man's name engraved on the front but gave no indication of what business he was in or where he could be reached. On the back was a phone number in Natalie's handwriting. Something about the symbol on the front was vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place where I'd seen it before. When you've lived for centuries that happens a lot.

"Yeah." Natalie reached out and took the card from my outstretched hand, her expression elaborately casual. "Life insurance salesman,." Natalie told me. She tucked the card into the back pocket of her jeans and then picked up the sandwich and took a bite. "Mmm. Thanks, Jack. I know, high in fat and we won't even _talk_ about the calories, but there's something just so comforting about good old peanut butter."

Well, guess we weren't going to talk about her visitor. While I was admittedly curious Natalie was entitled to her privacy, and so like a fool I let the matter drop. I sat down beside her and sipped from the now twice-reheated cup of cow's blood, trying not to grimace at the taste.

"I'd like to go check out the address of the guy who's been snooping in your computer," I told her. "But I hate like hell to leave you alone."

"I'll admit I'm not too keen on the idea myself," Natalie admitted. "And boy, do I hate that." She smiled to take any sting out of the words. "I hate feeling like such a…oh, a B-Movie girl, I guess. Always crying and needing to be rescued. And…" she bit her lip, "You said Nick would be coming over. I don't think I want to be alone with him, Jack."

That should have made me glad, but instead all I could do was grieve for the shambles Nick had made of both their lives. "Yeah," I agreed quietly. "Well, your computer Peeping Tom can wait another night. I unplugged your modem, and without that there's no way he can get to you," I assured her, not knowing how very wrong I was.

"You really think that a vampire would kill me to keep—no. You know what? I am tired of talking about vampires." I set my cup down and started to get up. "I didn't mean you, Jack." She touched my hand, smiling wanly. "I was thinking, well…" Her smile widened. "How do you feel about _The Sound of Music_?"

In spite of everything that happened afterward that night remains one of my most cherished memories. We sat on Natalie's couch until just before dawn, sipping our respective drinks of choice and watching movie after movie from Nat's video collection. My desire for her and Natalie's virus of Nick memories were in the room with us, but neither kept us from enjoying the movies and each other's company. False dawn was just tingeing the sky when I finally made my way to the door. We'd never heard from Nick.

"Call me when you hear from him." Dawn was creeping steadily toward us, but I couldn't seem to make myself leave her threshold. "Tonight I'm going to run by the address I found for your Peeping Tom before I come over, but I'll have your cell phone."

"Okay. Be careful, Jack. If it is one of your people they're not going to be happy that you're helping me. I…I don't want to see anything happen to my shirt." She tugged lightly at the Coroner's Department shirt I was still wearing, smiling shyly.

"If I feel myself to be in imminent peril I'll be sure to take it off." We were standing close together and so close in height that our eyes met and her lips, I couldn't help but notice, were only inches from mine.

She shook her head, her expression growing serious. "You meant what you said last night, right? Even if things, if I'm not helping the Community any more? You'll still be my friend?"

"Always." I couldn't help it. I slipped my arms around her, drawing her close, and got the shock of my life when I felt Natalie's go around my waist in response. "Always, Nat." I tilted my head toward hers, intending to plant a chaste kiss on her cheek, and was even more surprised when her lips met mine. Our kiss was tender and sweet, barely hinting at the desire that I, at least, felt. For one sweet moment I was taken back to my wedding night, all those years ago. When the kiss broke we stepped apart, our hands brushing. Natalie looked surprised and shaken, but happy, too.

"Get out of here, Jack." She was smiling as she nodded toward the window where daylight was slowly but surely beginning to dawn. "Unless you want to stay the day." Our eyes met at that and I saw awareness tinge Natalie's cheeks with a faint blush. "My couch is said to be one of the most comfortable ones in the western world," she told me solemnly, her eyes sparkling.

"I'll call you tonight," I promised, my own cheeks burning. "As soon as I wake up." I wanted to kiss her again but settled for caressing her cheek with one hand. "Get some rest."

"I will." She touched my hand and then pushed at my chest with a soft laugh. "Now shoo! Before you get a suntan or something." I turned and walked away, a goofy smile on my face. Oblivious to everything but my own delight, I half-ran down the hall, whistling.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Natalie's phone had been busy when I rose that evening, and I'd frowned momentarily before putting the worry from my mind. She _did_ have friends and family other than me, after all. If she'd gotten a good day's sleep then maybe she was feeling up to talking with someone outside the vampire world. Good for her. I got dressed, taking time to do a better job of it than my usual t-shirt and baggy jeans, then fixed myself a quick meal and headed out the door, the address of Natalie's 'puter snooper in my pocket.

The address I'd recovered led me to a small, drab building in one of Toronto's more run-down commercial zones. I pulled up a block away and waited, looking for signs of activity. It was well after five, and as I watched the last building on the block went dark. Moments later a middle-aged woman trotted out and got quickly into her car. Her Chevy was the last car in the parking lot, and when it pulled out and drove away a minute later I got out of my car and walked across the street. I did a slow, casual walk around the building, feeling absurdly like an underweight Travis McGee, before walking up to the back door and giving it an experimental tug. It was locked. I leaned in and closed my eyes, listening. No sounds of mortal voices or mortal heartbeats—or any sound from inside at all, for that matter—reached my sensitive vampire ears. The number of phone lines going in and the power usage on the electric meter suggested that I might be in the right place, though.

There were no security cameras in sight, but the telltale signs of a high-tech security system in place were there if you knew what to look for. While most of what I did was computer security I wasn't totally ignorant of building security, and it didn't take me long to verify that every door and window in the place was wired with one of the best systems on the market—and that was on top of the heavy-duty bars that covered every window. Like with the attack on Natalie's computer it seemed like a serious case of overkill and made me wonder again exactly who we were dealing with. The software attack hadn't read like Aristotle, Merlin, or anybody else I knew, and I'd been assuming that somebody in the Community had brought across a mortal hacker I'd never heard of. But there were way too many unshuttered windows in this place for it to be one of us, and on reflection it seemed like any awfully complicated setup just to get into Nat's files. If a vampire wanted to know what Natalie was up to he'd just go to her place and find out right from the source. Natalie might be a resistor, but enough pain will make anyone talk and there are damned few vampires so tender-minded that'd they'd stop short of torture to expose a threat to our existence.

So maybe this was just a mortal matter after all. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and stared at the hidden alarm pad I'd found on the back door, thinking. I'd promised Nat I'd turn over my records to the police if it turned out to be unrelated to the Community. While I'd read every Travis McGee, Thin Man and Philip Marlowe book ever written I wasn't a private eye and I knew I was probably in way over my head. If it had been anyone but Natalie I would have let the matter drop right there, but it wasn't. Somebody had targeted Natalie, and I wasn't going to let them get away with it. I was giving the security system a second look, thinking about the best way to override it, when a car pulled into the parking lot behind me.

I disappeared and watched from the roof as a pot-bellied, middle aged mortal with long, greasy hair and a vibe that just screamed "computer geek" got out of a much abused Volkswagen bus and shuffled toward the front door, most of his attention on the sheets of green bar computer paper in his hands. He never heard me land lightly behind him as he deactivated the alarm. I caught the door before it could shut behind him and followed him inside, letting the heavy door click shut behind us.

The theme of 'way too much technology for a simple hack job' continued inside. I followed the mortal through a well appointed waiting room and past rows of heavy duty metal doors locked with the latest electronic locks and walls that dampened out ambient noise from outside so well that even my ears couldn't pick it up. The place felt like World War II bunker, or maybe even a modern day castle. That was strange, but not strange enough to warrant more than a trace of my attention as I followed him in. These were the guys who were after Nat. Nothing else they were up to mattered.

We stopped at what felt like the back of the building, the mortal entering a ten digit number into a keypad and then opening one of the heavy metal doors. The room was filled with computers and disc storage units, with papers and files strewn everywhere. My eye was drawn to a cork bulletin board. Papers were tacked to it as well, along with an eight by ten glossy of Natalie taken just outside her apartment building. That was all it took. My worry for Nat and anger that someone would try to harm her suddenly had a concrete target and when the red rage filled me I went with it gladly. I made no attempt to stay silent as I followed him through, and when the mortal spun around in surprise I snatched him up by his shirt. His feet were dangling off the floor and his eyes wide with fear as I let the door slam shut behind us.

"Natalie Lambert. Why her?" My voice was a low growl, a far cry from my normal mild tenor. That was okay. I didn't _feel _mild.

"I, I don't know what you're—" I tossed him across the room. He slammed into the wall next to the bulletin board and slid to the floor, shaking his head in a wide-eyed denial that I believed not at all. I was across the room in a heartbeat, dragging him to his feet and staring into his eyes. I could smell his fear, and that made me smile. It was hot and sweet, just like his blood would be. "Natalie Lambert. You've been stalking her. Why?" The vampire "whammy" that I hated and rarely used flowed up from inside me and into the frightened mortal in front of me without hesitation. "_Tell me_," I commanded without a single qualm.

"She knows. About you. About v-v-vampires," he relied instantly, his heartbeat pounding in my ears. "They think what she's working on could be useful to them."

"They? Who's 'they'?" Something caught my eye and I glanced at the bulletin board next to his head. The board was covered with papers, but one piece of letterhead stood out like a beacon.

On it was the same shield and sword symbol I'd seen at Natalie's place the night before.

"The Templar! They know all about you guys! They're scared shitless that you're gonna—" I knew what he was telling me was important, important far beyond Nat and me, but most of my mind was still reeling over how close to Nat those bastards already were when I hear a soft _click_ behind me. The hacker's gaze went to something over my left shoulder and I started to turn.

Too late. Something slammed into my left shoulder blade, shattering it and sending waves of agony through my chest. I looked stupidly down at my shirt. A wooden shaft was sticking out through the black Nirvana t-shirt I was wearing, a bloom of red blood growing out around it and coating Kurt Cobain's image. That seemed fitting, I thought dazedly. My legs gave out and I fell to me knees, the hacker forgotten.

"'Scared shitless' is something of an exaggeration," a deep, cultured voice said from behind me. I heard footsteps, and when he spoke again he was right behind me. "I prefer 'cautious'. We know what you creatures are capable of, Mister Cohen. Don't," he added as I tried to rise to my feet. Something hard and sharp was pressed to the nape of my neck, further urging me to stay where I was. "That will be enough, Jeffrey. Wait for me out front." The hacker edged around me and stumbled for the door without saying a word. I heard his footsteps as he ran down the hall and, distantly, the sound of other voices.

_The Templar_. The Knights Templar, formally known as Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon when they were created almost nine hundred years ago. They had been publicly disbanded some two hundred years later, but their legend had lived on both within the Community and outside of it to this day. They were the guys you warned naughty little fledglings about when stories of the Enforcers didn't do the trick. If even half the rumors I'd heard about these guys were true I would be in a heap of trouble.

Strike that. I _was_ in a heap of trouble.

"Natalie," I coughed. Coughing hurt like hell, and now I could taste my own blood in my mouth. "She won't help you when she finds out what you are. You know that."

"On the contrary. Doctor Lambert was very receptive to what I had to say. Of course, given what she's been through at vampire hands that's hardly a surprise, is it?" The crossbow bolt pressed into the skin at the back of my neck, sending a thin trickle of blood down my back. "But Doctor Lambert should be the least of your concerns now. Tell me who else knows about this place and I swear I will give you a merciful death, vampire. If you refuse I'll make sure you take days to die."

It wasn't an idle threat. While the crossbow bolt had missed my heart it had come damned close, and the wooden bolt had done a lot of damage, damage I couldn't heal with the wood still in the wound. My left arm was useless, and shock and blood loss were making the rest of my body all but useless as well. I wasn't going to die from the wound, but as the hours ground on I would start to wish I had. And if these Templar creeps remembered what they'd learned during the Inquisition…

Giving him names—and for a recluse I knew a lot of them, mostly from the IRC board I ran—would delay my death, but it would also damn me to hell as surely as coming across had. "I sent it to the _Times_," I said instead, and was rewarded with a dig that ground the hardened point of the bolt into the back of my neck. I gritted my teeth, refusing to give him the pleasure of hearing my pain. "And every newsgroup I'm subbed to. You assholes are toast."

"Very well." The bolt withdrew from my neck. Somehow I knew that wasn't a good thing. I readied myself to try and lunge to the side, knowing that I'd never make it. "May God have mercy on your—" I was in motion, flopping to my right with all the grace and speed of a fish on dry land, when the door behind me slammed open.

"That was Sheldon. The police are outside our hotel rooms," a mortal voice that was filled with tightly-controlled alarm said from somewhere out of view.

I had made it to the floor and was now flat on my stomach. With effort I managed to turn my head to see my attackers. The one closest to me was holding a crossbow, his blond hair, dark overcoat and general build reminding me of Nick. _Roxy_, I realized. This was one of the ones who had killed her. Not Nick. The other man, also powerfully built but younger and with a shock of red hair cut in a style I hadn't seen in centuries, was standing in the doorway looking alarmed. Good. Alarmed was good.

My attacker sighed. "I told them the singer was too visible a target. Are the police on their way here as well?"

The red head nodded. "The police scanner has one car on the way. Alistair, if they…"

"They won't." My new friend Alistair gestured toward the bank of metal cabinets along one wall. "Get our equipment in the car. I'll trigger the emergency procedures in here. We can collect the good Doctor Lambert on our way out of town."

_Natalie_. No, not her. Anyone but her. Once she saw what their agenda was she'd refuse to help, and the God help her. The Templar had God's ear, or so they claimed. If she wasn't with them she against them, and so against God. God help her then, all right.

The redhead nodded, clearly relieved to have someone decisively in charge. "I'll take care of it." He left the room and Alistair moved quickly to the first computer, entering a series of commands and then moving on to the next. I was trying to push myself up with one handed when he spared me a glance. "This is your last chance. Tell me who your contacts are and I'll kill you quickly." He finished what he was doing with the computers and moved to the metal storage cabinet. Unlocking it, he pulled out a series of squat metal boxes and sat them on a nearby wheeled table. They didn't look like anything but metal shoeboxes, but the care with which he handled them made me pretty sure I didn't want to know what they really were.

"Natalie," I tried. Alistair just shook his head.

"The computers are scrubbing themselves as I speak. One of these," he lifted one of the metal boxes and set it atop a bookshelf stacked to overflowing with computer printouts, "in each room will take care of the paper records. It would be only what you deserved, vampire, to let you burn with them. Cooperate and I'll spare you that."

_Fire._ The one death I feared above all others. Just the thought of being trapped in here as the room filled with heat and smoke, the flames crackling with delight as they ate their way toward me, was enough to make my heart an icy stone in my chest. Remembering the feel of flames on my skin, the smell of my flesh and hair as they began to cook, burning me alive while I thrashed and screamed…"No," I whispered, horrified.

Alistair knelt beside me, his face grave and filled with a righteous nobility that made me want to smash it in. His partner called for him and he waved the younger man off. "Cooperate," he told me. "Tell me what you know. Perhaps God will show you forgiveness for your sins." He was utterly convinced of the rightness of what he was doing. To him I was a monster, one with a soul that might still be saved if only I would betray my fellow monsters. My fear was so great that for a moment I desperately wanted to do as he asked. To say anything, anything at all, that would keep me from facing that terrible fate a second time. Faces of the vampires I knew, and the names of the many others who would always be just icons on my computer, flooded my thoughts. _Nick. Aristotle. Janette. Bourbon. CajunR_. I closed my eyes and prayed for the strength to refuse.

And received it. A peace that sure hadn't come from anyplace inside me welled up and I opened my eyes to look steadily up at Alistair. "Repent or burn? Isn't that the same deal they offered your guy de Molay?"

His face crumpled into something I couldn't read and he rose to his feet abruptly. "Very well. You have made your choice. I will pray for what remains of your soul, vampire." He made the sign of the cross over my mostly prone body and strode righteously away, the door shutting solidly behind him. I was looking around the room, wondering at my sudden calm in the face of my greatest fear, when the world exploded. Light so bright it brought tears to my eyes seared me to blindness while heat baked across my skin, giving me the closest thing to a sunburn that I'd had in centuries. I tried to roll away from the pain, only to be jolted back to my senses by the much sharper agony of the crossbow bolt that still impaled me.

"Shit." The peace, wherever it had come from, wasn't going to lift me bodily from the fire. If I was going to survive, if I was going to rescue Natalie, it would be up to me. Fire was roaring in the room, the heat and smoke already enough to have overcome a mortal. That was what normally killed them, I remembered. Smoke inhalation. My death wasn't going to be nearly so pleasant if I didn't get my ass in gear, quick.

That thought threatened to send me spiraling back down into panic, and I tried to push it away with less than total success. Natalie needed me, I told myself. Using my good arm and the chair next to me I leveraged myself to my knees with only a minimal amount of whimpering. I looked away from the fire and toward the door. A support beam had partially fallen through the ceiling and was blocking the doorway. _("They barred the doors!" my wife Leah shrieked, her eyes wide with fear, as our children clung to her skirts._) I was too crippled to lift the beam, or to tear the heavy, reinforced door free even if I somehow managed that. The smoke was so thick I could barely see, but I didn't need to see to feel how close the flames were. I grabbed the steel bookshelf next to me to pull myself the rest of the way up and hissed in pain as the hot metal burned into my flesh. I stumbled to my feet with a monumental effort and then just leaned against the wall, done in by the effort and by mind-numbing fear.

I was going to die.

The sound of broken glass didn't break through my haze of pain and growing fear. The heat by now was easily enough to shatter glass, I thought. Then strong hands appeared out of nowhere, grabbing me by the shoulders and startling me out of the _Shema_ I had been whispering. _Esther_, I had time to think, remembering the vampire who had rescued me from the flames all those years ago. Then I remembered to open my eyes.

"Nick!"

""It's getting a little warm in here, don't you think?" I was saved from trying to make a witty reply as Nick scooped me up like I was a child and flew us both out through the window he'd apparently come in through. Fresh, cool air bathed my skin as he set me down gently on the grass outside. Nick was supporting me with one hand while he ripped open my t-shirt, revealing the extent of my injury. "We don't have much time," he warned me, and as soon as Nick said it I became away of the sound of sirens in the distance. "This is going to hurt."

"Go for it," I told him, bracing for the worst. "I'm rea—" Before I could finish the sentence Nick had grasped the crossbow bolt and pulled it free in one quick, brutal jerk. The feel of the wood grating against my ribs and pulling through my flesh was indescribably bad, but the moment the wood was free the pain dropped down to a dull roar and my stunned mental processors started to come back online. I blinked, trying to assimilate everything my confused senses were reporting. Nick had ripped the bars over the window off, I saw. The bars had been heavily reinforced and attached with steel bolts a good six inches into the solid wood of the wall, and he had torn it free like it was paper. "Wow," I muttered.

Nick reached down and helped me to my feet. He had on his "cop" clothes, I saw, and while his tan jacket looked a little sooty around the edges he looked other otherwise unruffled by what had just happened. I, on the other hand, was coated in blood and soot pretty much from head to foot and my clothing—what was left of it—was still smoldering and smelled like last night's campfire. My Nirvana t-shirt, an old favorite, was beyond anything but the rag bag. I sighed and rubbed at my still-smarting eyes with grimy hands.

"You all right?" Nick asked. I nodded, still not really good with the whole "put words together into sentences" thing, and watched as he turned back toward the burning building, clearly intending to go back inside. I shuddered at the thought, unable to take my gaze from the inferno. The wail of sirens sounded in the distance and I saw him shake his head before turning his attention back to me.

"So how did you happen to be inside a Templar building, anyway?" Nick gestured to the Caddy and we walked over with all the speed I was capable of, the sirens now loud in our ears. A sudden, massive explosion from inside what remained of the building made me jump, and it wasn't until we were in the car and driving away, safe and sound, that my mental processors were fully back online. I found myself dazedly wondering how Nick had learned about the Templars and what had brought him to the building just in the nick (so to speak) of time, but all of that, I suddenly realized, could wait.

"Natalie. They know about her, Nick. About the cure she's been working on. They want her. They're on their way there right now." I was relieved when Nick immediately gunned it, sending the Caddy roaring in the direction of Natalie's place. It was almost like _I _was the one with the echoes, I thought. On one hand there was this Nick, my best friend, the guy who loved Natalie and always tried to do the right thing. But on the other was a dark, cold Nick, LaCroix's Nick, a guy who could toss Nat aside like a used tissue, threaten my life and kill an errant fledgling without a second thought.

But Nick _hadn't _killed Roxie, had he? I held on as we flew through a busy intersection against the light, leaving a host of shrieking tires and locked up brakes in our wake. The Templar guys had killed Roxie. And Nick looked anything but cold and indifferent as he glanced at me, his eyebrows knitted together in worry, while we screamed through another intersection.

"The Knights Templar," Nick growled. "Created to protect the innocent and sworn to poverty. They've come a long way since then, haven't they? They killed Roxie," he said, sparing me a quick glance. "I was on my way to Natalie's last night when I got a call from LaCroix. Two more went after Janette, just after closing time. Apparently they thought that one vampire woman was as easy to kill as another. They thought wrong." I nodded my understanding. Janette might look the cool, delicate lady, but I wouldn't bet on the chances of any mortal who tried to harm her, Knight Templar or not. And if Papa LaCroix had still been there at the time… I shivered, capable of feeling a twinge of sympathy for anyone facing _that_ guy's fury.

"So what happened," Nick asked, bringing me back to the present. "How did the Templar find out about Natalie?"

"I don't know. Somehow they heard about her attempts to find a cure. They hired a guy to hack into her home computer," I told him, "trying to swipe her notes. My software kept them out, so today they sent one of their guys over there," I continued, the pieces finally falling into place. _H__e said all the things I haven't wanted to think about,_ Natalie had said. At the time I'd thought she meant Nick. And then there was the sword and shield on the business card they'd left. I was such an idiot, I thought with another sigh. "He sweet talked her, and she listened to what he had to say. He didn't hurt her," I assured Nick as thunderclouds started to gather in his eyes. "But now they've been made by the cops they're leaving town, and they're gonna take Nat with them whether she wants to go or not. They want that cure, Nick. Big time." His mouth tightened into a thin line. Nick wanted the cure for himself, and for anyone else who wanted out, but he was too smart and too old to not know what guys like these Templar clowns would do with it.

"She won't give it to them. I know," he glanced at me, "we both know Natalie better than that."

"She hasn't exactly seen us at our best lately, you know?" He grimaced and looked away. "But, no," I agreed. "Nat won't help them commit genocide, no matter how she feels about us. And when she refuses…"

We went over a center divider and cut across three lanes of outraged traffic to slide to a stop in front of Natalie's apartment building. People stopped to stare as we jumped out of the car and sprinted for the door, heedless of their curious looks. As soon as we were in the lobby Nick stopped and touched my unhurt shoulder. "They'll be armed, and they know what we're capable of, Jack. I'll go in the front door. I need you to watch the back. Get Natalie out if you can."

I started to nod and then hesitated. "Like you said, they know what you are. If you go busting in there and they decide to use Nat as a shield," I didn't finish it aloud. The Nick I had known would do anything to keep Natalie safe, including letting one of our enemies go free. LaCroix's Nick would do anything to take out one of the enemy Templar, including, I thought, letting Natalie die. Which one was I dealing with now?

"Jack, I don't have time to explain, but I swear to you Natalie's life is more important to me than my own. More important than anything. I won't let anything happen to her." His words sounded sincere, but it was the pain and determination I saw written on his face that decided me. This was the Nick I'd always known, the Nick I would trust with my life—and with Nat's. I nodded and ran with inhuman speed toward the rear exit, my injuries forgotten.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

The smell of blood, sharp and fresh, hit me hard as I came to a stop just outside Natalie's living room window. For one blinding instant of overwhelming need I didn't even care whose blood it was, my tired and battered body clamoring loudly for the only thing that could make it whole. Fingernails more like talons gouged into the windowsill as I struggled to get the Beast under control. Precious seconds ticked by before I at last managed it, and it was still a very near thing. Feeling like a fool—by all accounts the Big Guy upstairs had no interest in helping any of the fanged set, even former yeshiva boys like me—I nonetheless whispered a brief prayer of thanks both for my return of control and the knowledge that had come with it: the spilled blood wasn't Natalie's. That done, I rested my back against the wall of her apartment and turned my attention to the raised voices coming from inside.

"You arrogant fool." The voice, filled with enough arrogance and contempt—to say nothing of fury—for any ten men, could only belong to LaCroix. And yet… "Did you really think that such a poor weapon would have chance against the likes of me?"It was LaCroix' voice, and yet it wasn't. There were three mortal heartbeats inside that room, one—whose scent was maddeningly familiar—dangerously close to my window. I was about to risk revealing myself by looking through the glass when I heard Nick's voice.

"Natalie." That one word, filled with pain and longing, was like a prayer on Nick's lips. "Nat, this isn't you. Come to me. Let me help you." Had I ever doubted Nick's love for Natalie? Those few words erased every doubt.

"Nicolas." LaCroix' inflection, Natalie's strained and trembling voice. "Whose heart do you choose to break, Nicholas?" _Oh, Natalie. What have we done to you?_ She was drowning in memories and a personality not her own, all because she had had dared to love a vampire. To love Nick. But those weren't Nick's words coming from her mouth, were they? Confused and heartsick, not knowing what to do or how to help her, I froze, letting the play pass me by, just like always.

"I can fix this," Nick promised, sounding as miserable as I felt.

"Don't listen to him, Doctor Lambert. He is the monster that did this to you. Only your own kind can help you now. We can protect you from them. We can make you _whole_ again." The Templar Alistair spoke with far too much assurance for my liking. "Put down the weapon and come to me. He will never break your heart again, I promise you that." The steel beneath those cajoling words told me, as if I'd had a shred of doubt, just how he'd make that last happen. It was the same fate he'd intended for me, and for all of our kind. Natalie might offer them a quicker method of killing us, but the Knights Templar would be all too happy to do us all the old fashioned way. My chest and shoulder throbbed at the thought, sending waves of pain down my still mostly-useless left arm.

I listened intently, trying to sort out positions inside Nat's apartment. A mortal heartbeat and slow, regular breathing told me that Alistair's partner was just inside, not far from the window. It was his blood I could smell, I realized. Natalie's voice came from further inside, somewhere just beyond the couch, I thought. Nick was at the door or somewhere close to it, with Alistair far too close to Nat, probably just inside the hallway leading to her bedroom. Nick could reach Natalie in the blink of an eye, but Alistair wouldn't be without a weapon. And Natalie had a weapon of her own, from the sound of things. If pressed, would she use it on Alistair, or on Nick?

"No!" Natalie's voice was a hoarse, hopeless growl of pain and fury. "Shut up! Both of you! Shut up and let me hear myself think!" A rough laugh that held no humor in it followed her words. "Yeah, good luck with that, Natalie." Only my vampire ears let me hear those last words. From inside I heard a groan as the injured Templar near the window rose to his feet and took a step toward her.

"Natalie, I'm sorry ," Nick said into the sudden quiet, his words not quiet muffling the sound of a crossbow bolt being cocked. "For everything. Let me fix this, and then I promise, you never need to see me again. You'll be free, Nat. Free of me. Free of us."

"Why? Why would you do that for me, Nick?"

"Because I love you." Nick, finally finding the courage to say the words.

Too late.

"_I do not love this woman_." A ragged sob was torn from her throat. "Nick? Did you say that? Or did I? I can't remember, and, and, yet I still love you, damn it, I still, I can't—oh God,_ kill the pain, this incessant longing!_" The plea was a raw scream of pain and despair that pulled me from my hiding place to stare in horror as our tragedy played itself out.

Nick was reaching for Natalie, his face a mask of pain and guilt. I saw Natalie bring up the crossbow she held, her own face roiling with a dozen conflicting emotions and memories. "I will have—" A movement caught her eye and mine as the two mortals moved toward Nick and Natalie in perfect unison, their weapons trained on my friend. For one moment of black despair I thought Natalie would join them.

And then the shadows cleared from her face the way the sun banishes a thunderstorm. She smiled at Nick, a look so full of tenderness and understanding that it broke my heart all over again. The crossbow she held, presumably taken from the Templar she'd injured earlier, came up with a smooth precision she could only have gotten from Nick or LaCroix. The bolt was released with a soft _twang_ and flashed across the room to bury itself in Alistair's chest. The crossbow clattered to the floor an instant before he did and then Natalie was collapsing into Nick's arms, unconscious.

"NO!" The redheaded Templar lifted his hand. In it was a smaller version of the weapon Natalie-as-LaCroix had lifted from him earlier. I saw Nick's head snap around, knew that he would never be able to free himself from Natalie in time. Our eyes met for just an instant before I launched myself at the human, grabbing him by the shoulder with my good arm and jerking him around to face me a split second before the crossbow fired. The vampire rushed into my face and I felt no pain at all as I snapped his neck. A look of shock and surprise crossed the mortal's face—even mortals cannot conceive of their own death until it happens—before he crumpled to Natalie's carpet at my feet. I looked up at Nick, still cradling Natalie in his arms, and smiled at them both before looking down to see the instrument of my own death.

And saw the crossbow bolt held securely in my left hand, not an inch from my chest.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

"Nick, for the last time, I'm fine." Natalie softened any sting from her words with a gentle pat to Nick's cheek. She was sitting on the couch, the two of us hovering like anxious midwives on either side of her. She still looked in desperate need of a good meal and an even better night's sleep, but I had to admit that Natalie did, in fact, look a lot closer to "fine" than she had just a few hours ago.

"No trace memories at all? No feeling that something is just a little out of place?" He asked that last in French, and Natalie had knotted her eyebrows together in concentration before responding.

"No. And it took every bit of my high school French to figure out what you just said. I'm okay, Nick. Thanks to you." She twisted around on the couch to smile at me and take my hand. "Thanks to both of you."

"It was the least we could do," Nick said quietly, guilt a familiar shadow in his eyes.

"Yeah," I echoed, back to _my_ familiar tongue-tangled self. As I'd hoped, Nick had been able to undo the damage that he and his master had inflicted on Nat. I had been both surprised and honored to be asked to help, but in the end it had been Nick, with Natalie's consent and cooperation, who saved the lady's mind and her life. In explaining to Natalie what had happened and why Nick had also been explaining it to me, and I now had an even deeper respect and loathing for the vampire who had sired him. Thwarted in his selfish desire to take Fleur and her innocence, LaCroix would now take his revenge on Nick by keeping my friend from the woman he loved…forever.

"Maybe we can still make it work," Nick said hesitantly. I gently pulled free of Nat and rose to my feet. They needed time alone now. Time to heal the wounds inflicted by LaCroix, and by Nick's—

"No." The word froze both of us in place. Natalie pulled free of Nick and rose to walk unsteadily over to the boarded-up window. Nick rose to his feet as well and stood stock still, his eyes only for Natalie. I knew I should still leave, to give the lovers a chance to work things out in private, but something kept me rooted to the spot. She kept her back to us for a long moment, one pale, capable hand coming up to rest against the rough wood. I'd turned out to have better contacts that Nick did when it came to things like this, and the same guys who'd taken the bodies away had brought with them a piece of wood to keep the worst of the winter chill out until Natalie could call her super. She picked at a long splinter of wood for a moment and then sighed before turning to face us, her eyes sad but resolute.

"I know how much this is going to hurt you, Nick, and believe me I'm sorry. I love you. I really do. You're one of the most decent, generous, kind…" She shook her head. "I think it's safe to say I'll never know anyone else quite like you. But," she bit her lip, white mortal teeth scraping against beautiful pink lips, and then tried again. "But I can't trust you. There's always going to be something you think I shouldn't know, some other time when you'll think you need to do something 'for my own good'. Lovers need to be equals, and I'll never be your equal, Nick. And I know how crazy it is to want or to need to be the equal of someone who's lived eight hundred years longer than I have. I know that, okay? I love you, Nick, but I can't be _in_ love with someone who will never see me as anything more than a gifted child. I just can't."

"Nat, I was wrong. I promise, I'll try—"

"I know you'd try, Nick. What scares me is that I'd never know if you failed." Her gaze shifted to me. "I just need some time. Time away from the Community, time to get my mortal life—and my head—back in order. Take a vacation, walk in the sun, maybe make a friend whose biggest secret is that, oh, I don't know, that he had a huge crush on his homeroom teacher. I need a little 'normal' in my life, guys." And "normal" didn't include vampires. Not even the harmless ones. I saw the decision in her eyes, and knew that not even a piss-poor vampire like me was truly harmless to a mortal. Natalie was right. She was better off, safer, without us in her life.

"I understand," Nick said quietly. I nodded my agreement, unable to speak. I'd never expected Natalie to return my love, not really, but now I was losing something that hurt almost as much. I was losing her friendship. _I will always be your friend_, I wanted to tell her again. _No matter what happens. It's non-negotiable_. Even if she could never again return that friendship, it and I would be hers. Always.

And of course I couldn't say the words. I let Nick say our goodbyes instead and then l let him drive me home, the silence in his Caddy almost deafening. As I locked myself inside my mini-fortress of a house it felt for the first time like I was locking myself in and not the world out. I showered and made a big dent in my bottled blood supply before falling asleep in a bed that felt cold and miles too big.

###

"Well, isn't this a surprise. From what Janette said I'd gathered that you didn't care for this establishment. Or any other place where people gather in numbers to eat, drink, and be merry." The phrase was originally from Ecclesiastes, but I was willing to bet that LaCroix was thinking more along the lines of "…for tomorrow we die." His eyes glowed with pleasure as he nodded at the bottle of wine I'd just tucked under my arm. I'd spent a ridiculous amount of time at a local market trying to decide which kosher wine went with Kung Pao Chicken before giving up and coming to The Raven for all of my liquid refreshment needs. Now I had to force myself to be calm, resisting a look at my watch to tell me just how late I already was.

"_A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou  
Beside me singing in the Wilderness-  
O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"_

"Actually, it's Chinese food. No wilderness required." I held up the slightly greasy bag and made myself meet his gaze. It had been nearly a month since I'd last seen the elder vampire. Nick and Nat were now back on speaking terms, but that only went as far as their working relationship and Natalie's search for a cure. Even if their breakup hadn't exactly been LaCroix' fault I knew he savored every drop of their suffering, and my anger gave me the courage to stand up under his penetrating, inquisitive stare.

"Interesting," he said after what felt like a century of being flayed alive in the sun but probably wasn't more than a minute. "It's so good to see a young man coming into his own. Loss and suffering are abhorred by most people, but I find that they often give us just the spur we need to…grow. Or to acknowledge our true natures, if you prefer."

What I'd prefer was to see _him_ flayed and hung out to dry, but saying that wouldn't be smart. Besides, the chicken was getting cold. I held up the bottle of blood wine and shrugged. "I'm just hungry." I bowed my head to him in a token of respect before turning to go. "Good night, LaCroix."

I waited until I was back in my car and a full two blocks from The Raven before stopping at a red light and reaching into my jacket pocket to touch the email I'd printed out. I didn't have to pull it out to remember every word.

_Care to have dinner and a movie with an old friend? You bring the Chinese, I'll bring the Julie Andrews. Nat._

The light turned green and I pulled out into traffic, whistling.

The End


End file.
